Should We Restrict Access to Overcrowded National Parks?

While going through many “Room for Debate” articles, I came across the debate, “Should Overcrowded National Parks Have Restricted Access,” which is debating whether or not national parks should have restricted access if they become overcrowded. Visiting a national park can be a great way to be active, while having an amazing view. However, overcrowding tourism has caused many popular national parks, such as Yellowstone National Park, to have many conflicts between wildlife and humans, and pollution.  In “Allow Popular National Parks to Charge for Attendance,” Reed Watson argues that we need to increase the charge to get into these national parks. If national parks were to increase their entrance fee, it would cover costs to maintain them because the National Park Service had reported that they have a $12 billion dollar cost in incomplete maintenance work and that only one-fifth of 1 percent of income taxes actually goes to the parks themselves. To defend his argument against people saying that an increasing entrance fee would exclude the poor, Watson reveals that most park visitors are already wealthy and live near the parks, so rather it being the cost to enter the park, it is actually the travel costs that are to blame for keeping low-income families from visiting, not the entrance fee. While Reed Watson’s viewpoint that we should restrict access to national parks by increasing the entrance fee, Phil Francis’s, author of “Limiting Access to National Parks is Rarely Necessary,” viewpoint was that we shouldn’t have to restrict or close any access to parks; however, we should make changes to lessen the environmental impact that we are leaving. Phil, having been a superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway and an administrative officer at Yosemite, stated that it rarely became overcrowded to the point where visitors couldn’t enjoy the park. By eliminating many walk trails and building new boardwalks, they are able to accommodate a larger number of people, while lessening the damage to the environment. Should there be restrictions when accessing an overcrowded national park? If so, what are some of your ideas of types of restrictions? Should there be a limit of the number of people that are able to visit the park?