Are Park Entrance Fees Fair?

[jpurdy]

Earlier this summer Interior Secretary Ken Salazar designated three weekends as "entrance free" weekends in the National Park System. Anecdotally, the first of those three weekends attracted larger-than-normal turnouts to many parks. Which makes us wonder, do you mind paying entrance fees, or should they be eliminated?

This can be a thorny subject. After all, our tax dollars in theory go to support the national parks, which are held in public trust. But the parks have more needs than the Congress seems willing to pay for, and so we encounter entrance fees.

Some say those fees are no big deal, that 1) they're a minuscule part of a national park visit or 2) we shouldn't mind chipping in a little extra for the parks. But others will point to the taxes we pay and argue that entrance fees are double taxation. Yet another argument is that fees discriminate against lower income earners.

So, tell us what you think. Should the National Park Service do away with entrance fees and put out a donation box for those willing to toss the agency some extra cash?
comment at:
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com...ance-fees-fair

[Bigdog57]

I don't mind a reasonable entry fee - but I hope they don't get to the point of being like paying to get into a theme park!

[renodesertfox]

When I was a young adult I always thought that entrance fees were rather high and it always seemed like a privelege to be able to enter a national park or monument. Then I became a dis-abled veteran, through no fault of my own(heliocopter crash) and have had an entrance to these special places for free because of my dis-abledness, service to my country. I still think these fee are too high priced and a better system should be worked out where all who are interested in them could see them for not so high a figure that it cripples a person's pocket book. This year, the government has raised entrance fees again.

Most national parks that I have been too have poor narrow roads, out-dated restroom facilities, etc. More money should be made available to up-date these places first, before Congress spends our tax dollars fixing pork-barrel programs.