BIG OAK FLAT: Yosemite entrance improvements
The National Park Service plans to improve Tuolumne County's gateway to Yosemite National Park and to relocate roadside parking from an overused edge of Tuolumne Meadows.
Both projects are planned on Highway 120 with construction beginning next year. A public meeting is scheduled from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. May 9 at Groveland Community Hall, 18720 Highway 120 in Groveland.
Asked Wednesday how much each project is budgeted to cost, when in 2020 construction is scheduled to begin, and when the projects will be complete, Scott Gediman, spokesperson for Yosemite National Park, responded, “All of this information will be available at the public meeting.”
Previous public meetings on the Big Oak Flat entrance replacement project include May 2018 at the Rush Creek Lodge complex, just west of the Big Oak Flat entrance to Yosemite, and in December 2018 online. A formal public scoping period closed in June 2018. A finding of no significant impacts was signed in February this year.
In a 77-page environmental assessment titled “Replace the Big
Oak Flat Welcome Center Complex” dated November 2018, federal park service planners say they want to combine visitor information services with campground reservations in one building, and upgrade the existing welcome center's aging utility systems, parking areas, and public restrooms.
Upgrading the Tuolumne County gateway to Yosemite is a priority because about one million visitors use the Big Oak Flat entrance annually, and the welcome center complex serves more than 50,000 visitors a year. The existing visitor information station is too small and inefficient to serve the volume of visitors arriving on Highway 120 from Tuolumne County.
“Action is needed because the existing welcome center complex does not meet visitor demands,” the federal report states, “and NPS staff struggle to provide quality public service because of inadequately sized and ineffectively organized facilities.”
Space restrictions in the existing complex make it less than efficient for people who stop and park to get information like trip-planning services, camping reservations, wilderness permits, and to buy maps and books and rent bear-proof food canisters. Aging utility systems for the restrooms require high levels of maintenance.
Right now the existing Big Oak Flat entrance has two main buildings and public restrooms. The setup includes space for the Mather District Law Enforcement Office. During the winter season, the welcome center complex is not staffed and does not provide visitor services. Law enforcement staff use their space year-round.
According to the park service,
Big Oak Flat entrance visitors often experience long lines and wait times for services and restrooms. There's not enough parking for visitors when it's busy, which leads to double-parking, blocking of NPS vehicles, road obstructions, and hazardous pedestrian crossings. Parking is not adequate for recreational vehicles and buses, which often block parking areas and the road.
Restrooms have three stalls for each gender, they are undersized, and there are often long lines of people. The septic tank and leach field are at the end of their useful lives, causing malfunctions and unpleasant odors.
The park service is proposing to build a new welcome center to replace the modular building and trailer that currently house visitor services, new, larger restrooms, a plaza connecting the welcome center and restroom buildings, reconfigure the parking lot to decrease vehicle- pedestrian conflicts and reduce congestion, build a small, unpaved staff parking area along Tuolumne Grove Road, install a sewer to connect the welcome center complex to the Hodgdon Meadow septic system, and decommission the aging septic system.
The intent of the Tuolumne Meadows Parking Relocation Project is to move shoulder parking on Tioga Road near the Cathedral Lakes trailhead to expanded parking elsewhere, at slightly higher elevations above the meadows.
Current roadside parking blocks views of Tuolumne Meadows for visitors in their moving vehicles, according to the park service. Parked vehicles also intrude into meadow and riparian areas, harming and reducing critical meadow habitat. New, expanded parking areas will accommodate the same number of parking spaces removed from roadside areas, as well as regional transit buses and other large vehicles.
The project was approved as part of the Tuolumne Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive Management Plan Environmental Impact Statement / Record of Decision in June 2014.