NPS Photo/Janice Wei
Halema’uma’u viewing area at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park
Last spring, I went to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. As we pulled up to the entrance gate, the ranger in the booth noticed my wheelchair. He told me that because I am disabled, everybody in my vehicle could be admitted for free, not only today but for the rest of my life. This was news to me. So I signed up to receive this perk. Who wouldn’t?
At the time, I didn’t realize how selfish I was being. I didn’t know that I was contributing to the crumbling infrastructure of our national parks.
But in my own defense, I’m not the only freeloader to blame. Last fall, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke put forth a proposal to raise admission fees at seventeen popular national parks, from the current rate of $25 per vehicle to $70.
Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Zinke said, “When you give discounted or free passes to elderly, fourth graders, veterans, disabled, and you do it by the carload, there’s not a whole lot of people who actually pay at our front door.” Zinke said the fee hike was necessary to help fund the $12 billion maintenance backlog at the National Park Service.
I was alarmed when I read this. I wondered if, when faced with this fee hike, all the decent Americans who always pay their way through life might take it out on me. Might any vehicle like mine with the wheelchair symbol on the license plate be run off the road in national parks? Might my tires be slashed? And how might the angry masses exact their revenge on the poor fourth graders?
Zinke, you may recall, is the same frugal steward who paid $12,375 in taxpayer money to fly from Las Vegas to an airport near his home in Montana on a private plane owned by a Wyoming oil and gas exploration company.
How might the angry masses exact their revenge on the poor fourth graders?
Fortunately, Zinke’s little backlash ploy didn’t work. When the rate increase was put up for public comment, 98 percent of those who responded opposed it, according to the National Recreation and Parks Association.
“Secretary Zinke’s rationale to steeply increase the entrance fees for others because disabled veterans and active-duty military get in for free, is a small-minded and mean-spirited jab that pits some citizens against others,” wrote John Rowan, national president of Vietnam Veterans of America. “I believe that we, as a nation, are more inclusive and compassionate than this. By discounting fees, we honor our veterans and our seniors and bring a bit of inexpensive enjoyment to our disabled citizens. . . . Secretary Zinke’s flawed plan needs to be discarded and forgotten.”
So far, the fee hikes have not been implemented. So I guess it’s safe for me to visit a national park this summer. But for the record, while we were in Shenandoah, my wife dropped $40 into a donation box. So if the national parks fall apart, it ain’t my fault. I suppose she should have gotten a receipt for that donation, in case I ever need it to appease an agitated mob.
Mike Ervin is a writer and disability rights activist living in Chicago. He blogs at Smart Ass Cripple, “expressing pain through sarcasm since 2010.”