WHAT GIVES?

What Gives?

I love all waste and solitary places;

Where we taste the pleasure of believing

What we see as boundless,

As we wish our souls to be.

Percy Bysshe Shelly

On September 18th, 2013, the National Park Service held a public meeting at the Tamalpais Valley Elementary School, to lay out their proposal to use the roadway along Dias Ridge to facilitate additional parking for the Muir Woods National Monument.  As a part of their parking  proposal, the Park Service is looking to build a 180 car parking lot somewhere on the ridge, either on the East side of the ridge overlooking Mill Valley and the Bay, or on the side of the ridge overlooking the Park.  Visitors parking in this lot will be shuttled down and back to and from Muir Woods.  In the meanwhile, before this proposed parking lot construction is completed, the Park Service would use the current road shoulder pull offs as temporary parking spaces, and have their proposed shuttle service pick up passengers along the roadway on a “flag down” basis.

The Meeting:

The Power Point sideshow provided by the Park Service was very confusing and difficult to see.  It did not seem to be created to provide any really useful detailed information to the audience, but was like the infomercials that populate late night television.  It was an obvious sales tool.  It was vague, in a purposeful sense.  Instead of inspiring confidence, it led me to think that we were confronting some hidden agenda, a secret deal that had been done behind closed doors out of public view, scrutiny and input.  Needless to say, the whole event conjured up numerous questions and concerns that would, in a proper democracy, be given a fair hearing and weighed in the decision making process appropriately.  The hurried timeline for public comment made the audience present pessimistic that much consideration would be accorded us.

A great deal of anger and suspicion was expressed by the members of the general public in attendance.  Many questions were raised and few were answered to any degree of satisfaction.  Most importantly, I asserted that this same idea was put forward over 10 years ago.   At that time, it met with considerable community objection and was shelved as a consequence.  The general public saw it as a bad idea then and their opinion of it hadn’t changed materially in the interim.  The Park Service presenters did little to convey a sense of connection to any of these concerns expressed by the general public, leaving the attendees with a sense that the meeting might just be a formality and that decisions had already been reached at a higher level, out of the view of the community most impacted.

GGNRA managers even fained ignorance as to the previous recent history of frightening the local folks over a similar scheme.  Even when those who were a part of that past failed effort were confronted on their prior knowledge, there was a persistent fogging and wiggling around the issue.

There was a very large contingent of Park Service employees in the audience.  I counted between 30 and 40.  This served little purpose to the actual conveyance of the information provided.  In my opinion, they were there to impress us with the official nature of the proceedings and to disperse the public’s attention from its genuine concerns.  This technique, which the Park Service used, is one that is frequently implemented to keep the attendees at a meeting from developing a higher more useful understanding of the subject matter the meeting is held to achieve.  In particular, it is a technique used to diminish the force of the collective consciousness formed during an open discussion of group concerns.  It works to divide and muffle dissent.  It is counterproductive to elevating consciousness.  Instead, it is used to create feelings of inevitability, hopelessness and submission.  If this meeting was an attempt to gain a synergistic understanding and voluntary cooperation with those of us who will have to live with the results of their parking and transportation scheme, it was not helpful.

A handful of elected officials were there.  There should have been more.  The final decision to build or not to build will have to be vetted politically.  Sides will have to be taken.  This is a major intrusion upon both our communities and the environment.  All our local politicians should be required to put their feet in this fire.  Their positions must be made public and be unambiguous.

The Objections:

I, like most other residents of the effected communities, are opposed to the Park Service’s plan to use the Dias Ridge for overflow visitor parking for numerous reasons.  My principle objection is my abhorrence to the despoliation of the virgin ridge land that is certain to occur if the Park Service is allowed to carve out a parking lot on the Dias Ridge.  Given all the efforts to retain critical open space, I think that this particular piece of open space with its pristine views of the wilderness of West Marin and the expanse of the Pacific Ocean would be the last place to develop.  Even the Park Service with its penchant for tackiness cannot have completely lost touch with the sensibilities implied in its charter.  The shear ugliness of the whole thing should repel and not attract.

At the September 18th meeting, the Park Service acknowledged that Muir Woods is a limited resource and should be treated as such.  Their public recognition of this fact leads me to think that, as the Park’s custodians, they have come to understand the necessity to prevent the Monument from being overused and trampled underfoot.  To accomplish this, the Park Service asserted its desire to limit the daily visitation to less than 4,000 people and is going to implement a reservation system to ration the usage of the park.  If this is so, my investigation of the existing conditions down in the valley next to the Park proves that their need for additional parking spaces is entirely unnecessary.

Currently, there is an existing capacity for daily visitation of well over 4,000 people.  This includes personal passenger vehicles, commercial buses and vans coming from the City, and the ongoing Marin Transit weekend Route 66 service.  I have enclosed my Muir Woods Parking Analysis to demonstrate this in detail.  It is self-evident and not really debatable at all, which begs the question, “What gives?”

The Parking Lot and the Ridge:

A most important question is how parking at this location will change the conditions on the roadway, and the experience the visitors who use the proposed parking lot are likely to have during their visit to the Park.  How does adding these parking spaces relate to the other Park Service assertions concerning improving the visitation experience, preservation of the Park’s natural resources and alleviating the traffic congestion caused by the public’s response to the natural attractions in the parklands in South West Marin.  To do this, I have done the math of this park and ride scheme.  It is very straight forward and easy to understand.  It is also very revealing as to the kind of experience intended for the visitors to the Monument by the parking lot’s promoters.

Let’s go over the basic proposal being put forth.  Of first importance is the proposed route the shuttle buses will take.  The proposal has the buses traveling from Dias Ridge down to the entrance to Muir Woods, dropping off their passengers, picking up visitors from the Park, then driving out Frank Valley Road to Highway 1, then turning left across Highway 1, proceeding from there up Highway 1 to Three Corners, left turning again across Highway 1 to return to the parking lot point of origin to drop off the returning visitors and then picking up a new group to take down to the Park.  Including loading at the parking lot, unloading at the Park, reloading at the Park for returning visitors, and finally unloading the returning visitors at the parking lot will take a minimum of 60 minutes.  In looking at this route, it is important to note the two left turns required across Highway 1 and the stop signage this will require to make it all work smoothly.

Second, given an average time of 2 hours visitor spend in the Park and the 60 minute travel time to and back from the Park, each of these 180 proposed parking spaces will turn over 4 times on each busy weekend day.  Factoring in an average of 3 passengers per vehicle, we can expect 2160 visitors to be shuttled back and forth, to and from, Muir Woods and the parking lot on each of these busy days (simple multiplication: 180 spaces x 4 cars per space per day x 3 park visitors per car = 2,160 additional park visitors per day).

During these days, 720 (180 x 4) individual vehicles will come and go from the lot, at an average rate of 90 cars per hour during the first 8 hours of the day, or over 1 car every 45 seconds.  The shuttles will likely be limited to a capacity of 40 passengers apiece (the size of the buses used currently by the Marin Transit to service Muir Woods on the weekends).  Consequently, the daily requirement is for 54 individual bus trips per busy weekend day from the parking lot on Dias Ridge to Muir Woods (2160 visitors / 40 visitors per bus).  All of these departures will occur over the first 8 hours of operation.  If we divide the 54 bus trips necessary to move the 2,160 visitors down to the Park into these 8 hours we have a rate of 6 to 7 bus trip embarkations per hour, or one every 9 to 10 minutes (54 buses/ 8 hours = 6.75 buses per hour).  Factoring in the unloading/reloading nature of the cycle, at least equal to this rate of flow, what we have is one bus arrives, unloads, then reloads, and departs just as another bus arrives to repeat the process.  During this time 10 minute window, 15 cars will arrive at and another 15 cars will depart from the parking lot onto the roadway along the ridge.  This will be a very active park and ride location, transforming the entire “feel” of the visitation experience to the Park.  It reminds me of my experience arriving at boot camp back in 1963.  What would John Muir have to say about this and his idea of the parks providing an experience of the Serenity of Nature?

The Park Service will need to employ at least 8 buses to serve this activity, 7 continually on the road and one held in reserve for the times that one of the other buses fails during its service duties, as often happens with the Airporter or the Marin Transit.  In addition, a tow truck will have to be on standby for such an eventuality.

This activity is certain to have a negative impact the traffic behavior on the roadway along the Dias Ridge.  It adds an element of complexity and danger, both near the parking lot, as well as at the intersection of Frank Valley Road and Highway 1 and at the intersection of Highway 1 at Three Corners.  Due to the extreme tightness of the curve at Three Corners, where Highway 1 intersects the road along Dias Ridge that returns the shuttle to the parking lot, both substantial lane widening will be required on the West side of Highway 1, as well as placing additional stop signs at Three Corners.  In turn, this will lead to an increase in traffic congestion coming up Highway 1 out of Tam Valley and for traffic returning Southward along Highway 1 coming up from Muir Beach.  Given these new traffic bottlenecks this proposal will add to the already troubled mix near Four Corners at Muir Woods Road and the road congestion on Highway 1, the Park Service’s parking lot scheme should on its face be rejected as an unsound idea out of hand.  But there is more.

The Contradictions:

To repeat my earlier question, if the Park Service is sincere about their assertion of limiting the daily visitation of the Park to less than 4,000 people per day, why would they add these 2,160 potential visitors to their already existing capacity of over 4,000 visitors per day?  Again, What gives?

We are left to speculate on the real motives of the management of the GGNRA in proceeding with this odious project.  It seems clear that there is a hidden agenda here that they are reluctant to speak of in public.  All things remaining the same, proposal expands traffic and potential visitorship, implying an expansion in usage, negatively impacting the natural resource of the National Monument and traffic conditions in the neighboring communities, not the opposite, as the Park Service asserted at the public meeting on September 18th.  The proposed parking lot compounds the problems brought up at that meeting, it does nothing to resolve them.  It severely complicates the traffic flow on the one of the principle roadways to the parklands of West Marin.  The public has a right to know about this; and it is patently unfair to hurry this so-called “scoping process” along and not let these blatant contradictions be vetted in public at meetings set up expressly for this purpose.  The Park Service must be made to reply to these points and do so publicly.

What Must Be Done:

To repeat the Park Service’s recent position, Muir Woods is a limited resource and should be treated as such.  As its custodians, in trying to keep the Monument from being overused and trampled underfoot, the Park Service has asserted its desire to limit the daily visitation to less than 4,000 people and is going to implement a reservation system to ration the usage of the park.  If this is so, their need for additional parking spaces on Dias Ridge is unnecessary.  The current lot size with the addition of the commercial bus services and the Marin Transit are already capable of handling this demand.  Solving the problem of this reduced demand is a no-brainer! 

Any transportation plan should take as many vehicles off the already crowded roadway coming up from Tamalpais Junction as possible, which would itself contribute to the health and safety of the rest of us, both those living here and those visiting.  It is time to hold a public “conversation” with the managers of the pertinent bureaucracies concerning the efficacy of the numbers I have provided and their relevance to solving the issue at hand.

Can the Park Service Remember their Mission):

I think that many would agree with me that the luxury development at Cavallo Point is an example of the Park Service having gone beyond what most citizens would regard as its mission.  From the $16 hamburger and fries to the $90 per hour massages in its spa, we have something not really available to be a truly “public serving facility.”  It is the physical statement of the 1% glancing up from their caviar and champagne to peek at nature.  Was this the vision when the Presidio was handed over from the military to civilian use?  I thought it was to allow this special property to relax back into a more serene and natural countenance.  I thought it was to restore this land to a place to take those quiet walks for the essential self-reflection that is so necessary in our pressured and hectic lives, as it was not so many years ago.  Not to watch valet parking and all the urban-feeling tension, exclusiveness and commotion that goes with it, not to mention the haves versus have-nots atmosphere prevailing in the contrast of the resort with the poor fishermen out on the pier, near the bridge.

As you drive into San Francisco, you see the once quiet and aged Presidio all torn up by the immense and seemingly endless construction projects that have engulfed the area around Crissy Field.  The management of the GGNRA looks like more of a construction consortium than a steward of nature’s resources.  With all the graders, drillers and shovels, etc. hanging around, it reminds me of the adage that to a hammer the whole world looks like a nail.  Let us not forget our role as “Custodians” in this drama.  Let us do what is necessary and in our power to do to see to it that the folks at the GGNRA do not turn the Dias Ridge into just another nail!

Clayton Smith

October 3, 2013.