Park wrestles with shuttle bus issues

Glacier National Park is struggling with shuttle bus finances and over the next few years will craft a management plan to try to deal with congestion along Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The shuttle bus/road situation was one of the topics at a community meeting Tuesday in Columbia Falls featuring Glacier Park leaders.

The park last week was awarded $1.3 million to create a management plan for the Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor.

The study will try to address packed parking lots and heavy user impacts along the road as well as the future of the shuttle bus system.

The shuttles are popular but costly and have not taken as many vehicles off the road as hoped.

Deputy Superintendent Kym Hall said the plan should be completed by 2015.

“We don’t know how to solve this,” she said. “It will be an important process for people to be involved in.”

Superintendent Chas Cartwright said the park will explore a pilot program to run buses outside of their normal season, as requested by some people, but also look at charging riders user fees.

“We have to find a way to pay for this system,” he said.

The park plans move its visitor center from a double-wide trailer into Apgar Transit Center, likely in spring 2013. It must seek additional funding to upgrade exhibits.

It also is looking to expand the Apgar Transit Center parking lot, adding about 50 new spaces for cars and 15 for larger vehicles. A final decision on that project should be made within a month.

“This is a good way to start the season, letting [people] know what we’re doing,”  Cartwright said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The “million dollar question” was when Going-to-the-Sun Road will be open for the summer over Logan Pass.

Snow-plowing crews are nearing Logan Pass and expect to reach the landmark by May 25.

Crews working from the west have made it through the avalanche chute past Triple Arches and expect to hit the Rimrocks next week. Crews working from the east are at No Stump Point.

Barring setbacks such as bad weather, which can change daily, crews could throw open the last gates as early as June 15, Hall said.

Meanwhile, major reconstruction work continues on Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Last year, crews finished stretches between Logan Pit and West Tunnel and between Big Bend and Siyeh Bend.

Work this year focuses on stretches between Avalanche Creek and Logan Pit and Haystack Creek and Big Bend. The goal is to finish work on alpine sections by summer 2013.

“We’re really making progress,” project manager Jack Gordon said.

Expenditures have topped $110 million with an estimated $30 million to $35 million more needed to finish the job.

The park still needs to secure money for stretches running from Siyeh Bend to St. Mary and from the west entrance to Avalanche Creek. The hope is to complete all work by 2016, the 100-year anniversary of the National Park Service.

“We would love to cut a ribbon that year,” Hall said.

Tuesday’s meeting also touched on invasive aquatic species, former private property in the park that Glacier acquired, and social media.

Boat inspections will be increased in Glacier this year to keep out invasive aquatic species such zebra and quagga mussels that have devastated water bodies in other areas.

“That is the threat that makes me lose sleep at night,” Cartwright said.

As in prior years, motorized and trailered boats will be inspected every time they enter the park.

For the first time, people with nonmotorized boats such as kayaks, canoes, rafts and rowboats must obtain a free self-certification permit and perform their own inspections.

The goal is to inspect every boat brought in — “Not to make your life miserable, but because we have to keep these things out of this world-renowned system,” Cartwright said.

“We will be in the boat inspection business until we don’t need to be any more, and I don’t know when that is.”

Cartwright said the park will start an expedited process to assess deteriorating properties it bought in the Lake McDonald area.

Instead of detailed condition assessments initially planned, the park will do “quickie” assessments to get the program going.

“The message is we will get these assessments done, hopefully most of them this year, and then come back with priorities and suggested uses,” Cartwright said.

Park officials encourage people to follow the park on social media websites. The park has uploaded hundreds of photos to Flickr and posts regular updates on Twitter and Facebook.

It has more Facebook followers than any other national park in the country, Hall said. “It’s often a great tool for the visiting public.”

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.