A Modest Proposal: National Park Pricing

I just got back from a week in northern California, including three nights in Yosemite National Park. The admission fee for the park is one of the best things going. It costs $20 for a carload. The problem is that the price is too low. The Park Service is underfunded, and has a backlog of maintenance projects that aren't getting completed. The other problem with underpricing admission to the National Parks is that it leads to overuse and overcrowding.

One thing you will notice almost immediately when you visit a National Park is that a lot of the visitors are not Americans. I would guess that half of the people at Yosemite when I was there were Europeans or Japanese.

I wonder if anyone has ever studied the idea of increasing the price of admission, then offering a discount to US citizens. Lets say the price goes up to $40 dollars a carload (still cheap), but drops in half if the driver presents an American driver's license. You could even include Mexican and Canadian driver's licenses, on account of NAFTA.

This type of differential pricing would raise a lot of additional revenue for the Park Service. The potential downside is that it might dissuade some foreign visitors from coming, and with car rentals, lodging, and meals, foreign tourists pump a lot of money into the US economy. You certainly don't want to injure that golden goose.

Because we have a lot of National Parks, we could conduct an experiment. Several of the parks could be selected for a trial run of this idea. The makeup of the attendees could be monitored both before and after the price change to see if it makes a difference. If there is no change, the new pricing structure could be rolled out across the entire system.

There may be existing international agreements in place prohibiting such a scheme. If that is the case, we still should increase the price charged for entry into the parks. That way the people who use the parks will be paying to maintain them. And I don't think there is any argument against maintaining the National Parks, so that future generations will also be able to enjoy them.

Anyone who has visited the wonders of one of our National Parks will agree with that.