WASHINGTON DESK - The Clinton administration
has announced details of an ongoing plan for removing passenger cars
and buildings from portions of U.S. national parks and replacing them
with a natural environment free of buildings and cars.
The plan consists of a project involving the
use of vast parking areas outside Yosemite National Park and the intensive
use of non-polluting shuttle buses transporting visitors to the interior
of Yosemite National Park in California.
Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, detailing
the plan alongside Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, said 'An increasing
number of our national parks are fast becoming as crowded with cars
as some of our most congested highways.'
Slater said the Clinton administration guidelines
'...develop transportation alternatives that preserve the beauty and
enjoyment of these treasures for generations to come.'
He and Babbitt said they would work together
to develop similar plans for other national parks.
Officials said, in the Yosemite Valley, Rangers
plan to implement removal of private authomobiles and require mandatory
public transit. To accomplish Clinton's Order many Yosemite roadways
and buildings are to be removed from the East end of the Valley in
the viciniy of the Ahwahnee Hotel. The hotel will remain open, however.
That portion of the Valley floor will be restored to its natural condition
as it is thought to have appeared 200 years ago.
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