Denali Vehicle Management Plan
Posted: August 22, 2011
The National Park Service completed the public comment period on its Draft Vehicle Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement on October 31, 2011. This long-awaited plan is based on social science and wildlife research conducted along the park road since 2006. The most significant proposed change from prior management is a change in the way the park defines carrying capacity along the Denali park road, removing the seasonal vehicle limit in place since 1986 and replacing it with a system of adaptive management.
How to view the plan
You can access and read the entire Vehicle Management Plan and EIS at:
DCC’s Comments and Alternative
DCC submitted Final Comments on the Draft Plan on Sunday October 30, 2011. The comments included a suggested new alternative and a request for a revised draft. Read the comments below:
DCC and Sierra Club cooperate on VMP comments
The September edition of Sierra Borealis contains an article on the Draft VMP, attached below (on page 3 of the newsletter). The article is a collaborative effort between Sierra Club and DCC. To read the article, click the link below.
September 2011 Sierra Club newsletter – VMP article is on page 3.
DCC Meetings and Comments on the Vehicle Management Plan
On October 15th, we completed another round of talking points with details on our most important concerns, that the VMP fails to adequately protect the Transit Service and Transit Affordability, and that the Action Alternatives are both too complex, expensive and problematic to accept whole cloth. We additionally express our support for certain plan strategies that protect the vulnerable west end of the park road. Please read our latest talking points at the following link. More detailed comments and analysis will be published closer to the comment deadline, but we hope to target broader public attention on some of these issues.
On September 14th, we held a constituent meeting at Denali and received a great many questions and concerns about the Draft Denali Vehicle Management Plan. At the same time, we posted a second Reaction Paper. Click below to read this paper and learn our latest concerns.
DCC created an initial response to the Vehicle Management Plan that we used to focus our questions, obtain more information, bounce ideas around, and elicit opinions from our members and others.
Background Information
The Denali Park Road Capacity Study provided the scientific basis for the actions proposed in the Vehicle Management Plan. NPS has some of the information from the study posted on the Denali website.
Particularly important of this information is the study by the University of Vermont which provides much of the data for determining indicators and setting standards in the Vehicle Management Plan.
Prior to the development of alternatives, NPS released a workbook to give the public an opportunity for early involvement in shaping the plan. Many of the ideas in the workbook are in the draft alternatives, but many dropped out. You can read DCC’s prior comments on the workbook too.
Want to delve deep? Check out the vehicle management strategy described in the 1986 General Management Plan, the modifications in the 1997 Entrance Area and Road Corridor DCP, and the justification for the 2000 regulation that firmly instituted the 10,512 vehicle limit.