Mitigating tourism in the Daks

https://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/opinion/editorials/2019/07/putting-in-the-effort-to-mitigate-tourism/?platform=hootsuite

This is brilliant.  It’s what locals have been thinking for a couple years now that this tourist train is a runaway and we need to do something to get it under control and back on the tracks.

Two  key quotes

“The bottom line is that, under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York spends lots of money to attract tourists but very little to mitigate their impact.”

“The Essex County occupancy tax should probably be part of the solution. The state recently agreed to let the county raise this tax on visitor lodging from 3% to 5%. We think the extra 2% shouldn’t go to tourism marketing, as the 3% does; it should be used to mitigate tourists’ impact. It could provide shuttle buses to trailheads, add trail crew workers or build workforce housing in places like Lake Placid where vacation rental units have driven up rent and house prices.”

"Many people, including town supervisors in Essex County, suggest it’s time for charge hikers the way the state charges for fishing and hunting licenses."

Yes brilliant. Vermont would love that plan.

I don’t have a problem with mandating a hiking license.  Hiking is at least or probably higher impact than catch and release fishing.  It could cover additional rangers and search and rescue.  You could even make it optional but if you don’t buy it and need S&R then you get a bill including for Heli time and costs.

How about requiring an Empire Pass to park at the trailheads? Also, I agree that charging (fining?) for rescue costs is pretty reasonable. I feel like a hiking license will be a hard sell.

Colorado already has something close to this.

https://www.coloradosarboard.org/COSARFund.shtml

I also recall that if you visit Chamonix and intend to ski off piste hike or climb you can purchase a liscence to do so that then covers S&R costs.  It’s not mandatory but if you don’t you could end up with a 25k Euro Bill.

Route 73 has become extremely dangerous and is really the major route in and out trucks that supply the area as well as the tourists themselves

Today there were 15 tourists including little kids standing on a two foot wide shoulder taking photos in a 55 mph zone.  These people have absolutely zero common sense.

I wouldn't be surprised if, in Essex County where hikers are fixated on peak bagging, impact from hikers is higher than fisherman. In other parts of the park it may be different. High elevation environments are fragile, the valleys more resilient.

I have no idea about litter. Who leaves more garbage, fisherman or hikers?

Z wrote

I don’t have a problem with mandating a hiking license.  Hiking is at least or probably higher impact than catch and release fishing.  It could cover additional rangers and search and rescue.  You could even make it optional but if you don’t buy it and need S&R then you get a bill including for Heli time and costs.

Isn't the issue you're talking about only relevant to a few very popular areas, and also confined to Friday through Sunday for the most part? (And holidays).

If so, incentivize people to hike other places and times. Don't tax people who want to hike a less popular peak on a Tuesday. I still think a NY hiking license would be a wonderful boon to Vermont and New Hampshire.

Great article.  I'd be fine with paying for some kind of hiking license.  Along with crowded trail heads the rangers are totally overworked.

I think the key is in the use of the additional Oc-Tax  to mitigate usage. A plan like this would be beneficial throughout the Park.

Makes perfect sense to me

In NYS you need a license to drive a car and we will give them to anyone.

You need a license to hunt and fish.

Clearly a license to walk is needed as well

 

campgottagopee wrote

Makes perfect sense to me

In NYS you need a license to drive a car and we will give them to anyone.

You need a license to hunt and fish.

Clearly a license to walk is needed as well

Camp, the article said a fee for hikers not walkers. It's gotta be the shoes!

HA! It always comes down to the shoes.

I find it hilarious when people move to a place for reasons, then complain endlessly about other people that want to visit the place for the same reasons. There are plenty of parts of the ADKs (or VT, or Maine) that don't have crowds, Z. If you don't like the crowds, move to one of those places and stop whining.

Could the area make smart changes to mitigate impacts? Sure. Buses are a good idea. Jackson Hole, WY had a great bus system. Smart to try to limit the impact of tourists who are just there for the greatest hits (ski jumps, Loj, Cascade, maybe the Garden trailhead, Van Hovenberg, Whiteface, then back to town).

Hiking tax!? Hahahaha. No freaking way. If someone needs to call for emergency services, just make them (or their insurance) pay. And no bullshit "I hit my head and ended up in Sacramento" excuses either. I thought you were in the party of "personal responsibility" & low taxes, Z. What happened to that?

I think the larger issue is that we want as many people to enjoy the outdoors as possible because if people realize what is out there, they might have more of an interest if a company wants to strip mine the place & build roads up the mountains. Driving through West Virginia was pretty interesting.

I don't think we're at the point yet where we have to worry too much about crowds. This past weekend was one of the busiest weekends of the year. We got a 9:09 tee time Friday at Saranac Inn by calling the day before, and we rode bikes on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday* (at well publicized BETA locations) and saw maybe 2 people each day. I think the ADKs are fine for now.


*Sorry I missed the Trail Day, SJ. Drove past the parking spot and it looked like you had a good crowd of volunteers.

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/2019/07/many-adirondack-mountain-peak-trails-hurting-who-should-pay-to-fix-them.html

Why not tax people to shit as well. That’s a major problem.

This article is stupid. Yes - the trails are in awful shape. Many are difficult to traverse. In many cases they are not enjoyable. I would rather see them close the trails in the spring through early summer - mud season.

If we go the way of the popular hikes in the National Parks I can see the trails asphalts over. A side walk all the way up Marcy. Hell - put in a snack bar at the top too.

Pretty much what ever I say MC will come up with some BS way to argue the opposite side

I’m arguing for
 
Not allowing Roost to spend that whole tax increase on more advertising and promotion (demand creation) and instead spend it on increasing supply for tourists by creating affordable housing for lower level employees and parking and shuttles for lower impact hiking.  MC has proven time and again that he has no ability to understand simple economics such as supply and demand.  He also shows he is a hypocrite and not really interested in environmental impact or the plight of the worker if it might impact his ability to hike when ever and where ever he wants.

If optional hiking lisc are available they would need to cover S&R like in Colorado.  If you don’t buy them you are on the hook for search and evac which could easily be a 5, 6 or even 7 figure sum in a repeat of Sacramento guy.   personal  responsibility pure and simple.

The parking at a central location say Mt Vanho and shuttles allow to limit and control how many hikers are on any one trail at a time and to direct them to lesser known but still worthy hikes plus explain and sell the benefits and risks of the above lisc concept.

Roost is controlled by the businesses in LP and it’s time they don’t control the cookie jar of the lodging taxes any longer.  Their mission is to put more money in their own pockets regardless of quality of the residents life’s or the environmental impact.

All these things MC based on his well espoused philosophies should be in favor of.

A license to hike seems like a bad idea to me. If I need a license to walk around the Park, why not a license to walk around everywhere else? Where does it end? There's no obvious limiting principal. Plus, you could get about the same effect on trail use by limiting or charging for parking at trail heads.

Pay for search and rescue is another bad idea (except in cases of fraud like the Sacramento skier).  It sounds like part of the libertarian small government privatize everything and pay for it at market prices, but in reality it's just another step down the road to the boring world where everyone is afraid of everything.  That's how we got to railings around Kaaterskill Falls, fences around the river at Hadley and ski helmets for everyone. We should be encouraging healthy young people to take risks, not punishing them for it.

A bigger occupancy tax would just give ORDA more money to eliminate glades and add another gondola at Gore (which are both in the plan, if not the budget). The Adirondacks don't need subsidized housing, I bet it's easier for a Lake Placid bartender to find housing within an hour's trip than it is for a Manhattan bartender, or maybe even a Saratoga Springs bartender. Do you really want the State to get into subsidized housing? Where does that end?

The better housing solution is local zoning that encourages affordable housing. If you want affordable housing in LP, all you need to do is ban short term rentals, the way Lake George did. That would make LP a nice place to live, especially if you were retired and could spend January in Costa Rica.

OTOH maybe the best solution for over use of trails is to pave the trail to Marcy, and add magic carpets and escalators at the steep parts.  Just leave it to the tourists, and save the other 45 for the locals.

mm
 

They double my water bill to pay for sewer. We've been paying to shit our entire life.

Oc-Tax it's here to stay! They use it to promote, promote, why not use a little to sustain?

Milo

The concept of optional S&R insurance is very Euro where it is impossible to sue the ski area and if you want to ski off piste or hike or climb anywhere go ahead but if you do and need help expect to get a bill unless you bought the insurance.    It does the opposite of putting guard rails and bubble wrap on everything - it opens it all up but if you f up it’s on you.

Now we have fing millennials call DEC for a heli when they aren’t prepared to walk down the Mt.  The only way to force personal responsibility in our pansy assed PC world is to either get insurance income from them or punish those idiots that expect the state to protect and bail them out.  Charge what a fishing lisc costs and I’d have no problem paying it.  Same as fishing lisc Lower costs for in state than out, under 16 are free, and discounts for seniors, plus a family discount.

The APA charges no entry fee.  Other states parks or national parks charge to get in and use the facilities including trails.  If you want to use it you need to pay for it.  Simple concept.

I’ve argued repeatedly that banning or limiting dramatically ST rentals need to be done ASAP before they force out everyone but the super rich from the area so we agree on that.  Again it’s simple Econ 101 and because the APA has restricted supply and ST rentals further greatly reduce supply of homes prices sky rocket.