A 2011 Transportation Scholar helped develop a pilot public shuttle system to enhance the visitor experience at Arches National Park by providing visitors more information to make destination choices,...
Transportation Scholars
How We Help
The Transportation Scholars program matches emerging professionals with substantial knowledge and expertise in transportation planning with parks with corresponding transportation-related issues like pollution or congestion that can be major detractors of the overall park visitor experience. The selected scholars build partnerships, work across jurisdictional boundaries, gain an appreciation for the need of alternative transportation projects in the national parks, and gain first-hand knowledge of NPS efforts to preserve our national treasures while working to solve the current transportation issue within the park.
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Success Story
Transportation Scholars Photos
Transportation Scholars Grantees
Arches National Park (ARCH) is experiencing rapidly increasing visitation and traffic congestion leading to routine overcrowding of popular park destinations. Immediately adjacent to most parking lots and trailheads are the sensitive natural and cultural resources the park was created to protect. The park is set to undertake an Alternative Transportation System and Congestion Management Study to examine strategies to manage traffic and prevent resource damage that results from parking on road shoulders and related social trailing, while also enhancing the visitor experience and promoting connectivity with the broader Moab recreational areas. Check out this awesome blog that Todd has kept throughout his project: www.timearcheson.com.
Scholar: Todd Johnson
The Transportation Scholar will complete two sequential, trail related tasks over twelve months.
First, the Scholar will conduct a critically needed traffic safety study of the Mount Vernon Trail, a heavily-used, paved, urban NPS trail within George Washington Memorial Parkway. The Scholar will improve ongoing efforts to measure traffic volumes and circulation patterns, initiate spot speed studies, organize a standard annual trail census in early September, and correlate results to a recently completed database of visitor injuries.
Second, the Scholar will compile existing data from the NPS National Capital Region’s Trail System (for all 15 parks) with a focus on connecting trails with neighboring communities and improving accessibility across the system. The Scholar will develop short and long-term recommendations to unite and define a proactive and inclusive NPS trails transit network across all jurisdictions in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia.
Scholar: Timothy Bevins
Harpers Ferry NHP is one of several NPS parks that operate their own transit system. The Park's boundary has increased 33% over the last decade. The Park currently encompasses 3,646 acres in three states with an additional 1000 acres for future planned acquisition. The scholar will study the current transit system to determine if additional nodes (pick up and drop off points) and bus route expansion is needed to reach outlying areas of the park. The scholar will also explore a comparative analysis with other NPS park transit systems and associated costs as well as a possible value analysis to decide the most efficient alternatives. A final report will be drafted and printed with distribution throughout the service.
Scholar: Menasse Kumlachew
The Transportation Scholar will complete two sequential, trail related tasks over twelve months.
First, the Scholar will conduct a critically needed traffic safety study of the Mount Vernon Trail, a heavily-used, paved, urban NPS trail within George Washington Memorial Parkway. The Scholar will improve ongoing efforts to measure traffic volumes and circulation patterns, initiate spot speed studies, organize a standard annual trail census in early September, and correlate results to a recently completed database of visitor injuries.
Second, the Scholar will compile existing data from the NPS National Capital Region’s Trail System (for all 15 parks) with a focus on connecting trails with neighboring communities and improving accessibility across the system. The Scholar will develop short and long-term recommendations to unite and define a proactive and inclusive NPS trails transit network across all jurisdictions in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia.
Scholar: Timothy Bevins
The park and the City of New Bedford have received $440,000 in funding to implement a new park shuttle to connect the various sites of interest in the park as a two-year pilot program. As a part of the implementation for this shuttle (targeted to be running in 2012), the park needs to develop a marketing strategy and an evaluation framework, which the scholar will be tasked with creating. Additionally, he will work on interpretive content to be featured on the shuttle. The original scholar, Steven Tupper, recently accepted a position with the Cape Cod Commission and wrote a great article providing terrific insight into his experience and the overall project at New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. Very the article at http://npf-stg.stmk.com/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files/tupper.pdf
Scholar: Steven Tupper
Climate change presents multiple challenges to managers of protected areas due to the magnitude and variability of potential effects on ecosystems, recreational opportunities, and transportation systems. In Washington state, national parks and forests are working together to develop climate change adaptation strategies across large landscapes to protect natural, cultural, and socio-economic resources. The Transportation Scholar will work as a member of the North Cascadia Adaptation Partnership and the Olympic Adaptation Project to develop sustainable transportation alternatives for future warming climates.
Scholar: Christopher DeLorto
FEATURED PARTNER
"Transportation Scholars" is made possible through the generous support of The Motorola Solutions Foundation and done in partnership with the National Park Service, Eno Transportation Foundation, Federal Highway Administration, and the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks Technical Assistance Center.
