[HN Gopher] The scourge of Rec dot gov (2021)
___________________________________________________________________
The scourge of Rec dot gov (2021)
Author : goplayoutside
Score : 96 points
Date : 2022-05-13 15:01 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pmags.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pmags.com)
| notRobot wrote:
| I have a question. I keep hearing about so many problems with the
| way things are done in the US. The tax filing system. Mass
| incarceration. Problematic police departments. Reproductive
| rights. Privacy rights. And on and on and on.
|
| But few (if any) representatives seem to want to fix any of this
| stuff. I see no progress. Just an ever increasing partisan divide
| based largely around religion and an "us vs them" mentality.
|
| Where do we go from here? Does this stuff ever get better?
| russh wrote:
| Dose it get better? No. It's very a profitable setup for some,
| and representatives need support from some to maintain their
| position so they can do "Good." Trying to make stuff better
| will get you branded somewhere between a raciest and a Nazi.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| I'm curious of what sort of examples you would categorize as
| "people who were trying to make things better but ended up
| getting branded as racist or nazi".
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| lucideer wrote:
| There's problems in every country - no political system is
| devoid of corruption, cronyism and the influence of lobbyists.
| But one thing I do find unusual about US (and to a lesser
| extent the UK) politics is how extreme the partisan nature of
| every aspect of politics is. Any explicit discussion of
| politics is about "sides"; even the most good-natured
| discussions are about "balancing" red and blue, rather than
| representing the reality of diversity of thought. And that word
| - "diversity" - even means something different in the US than
| elsewhere: rather than actual diversity (acceptance of a
| spectrum), it rather tends to mean hitting a set of strictly
| predefined (discrete!) boxes.
|
| I can't help but think - especially given the existence of some
| parallels in UK politics - that FPTP must have some input into
| creating this culture.
| toss1 wrote:
| This stuff literally only gets better if people get out and
| vote
|
| Politics in the western world is shedding the 19-20th-century
| ideologies and right/left wing parties and devolving into at
| it's root, autocracy vs small-d democracy.
|
| The problem here is that the autocrats also support 'free-
| market capitalism' (which works basically as described in this
| article - crony capitalism), and motivates their voting blocs
| with fear. Their voting blocks vote reliably. The result is
| things like Trump and Brexit.
|
| The small-d democratic parties basically motivate their voters
| with hope and freedom to do your own thing. the problem is that
| their voters tend to do their own thing, and that thing is not
| attempting to control others for profit, and they tend to be
| apathetic about voting. Especially since their demographic
| tends to be young, and the young are famous for having loads of
| political opinions but not actually showing up to vote -
| especially in minor elections, such as mid-terms and state
| elections in the USA. Active disinformation campaigns don't
| help.
|
| Somehow, the Nordic countries seem to have cracked the
| participation code a few generations ago, and are anti-
| autocratic and nice places to live. Whether this can be
| sustained in other democracies is an open question.
| kodyo wrote:
| > This stuff literally only gets better if people get out and
| vote
|
| citation needed.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| On the contrary, what do you think _not_ voting is going to
| accomplish.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| The movement to denigrate voting as useless has been so
| unbelievably harmful. I don't know what to do about it,
| though. Cynicism is cheap and easy.
| tomrod wrote:
| The US system elects based on popularity, but the problems
| require technocrats. Decrease in educational standards and
| funding, as well as funding for other services, is both the
| reason and part of the answer.
|
| We need bureaucracies that can be evaluated on efficiency in
| performance to mission. Many US representatives, ideologically,
| want to starve the US government of resources for a variety of
| reasons (serving the wealthy, lost cause, religious background,
| Reaganite). Rather than target efficiency, it's a simpler
| narrative to point to an underfunded, possibly brain-drained
| agency and make fun of its failings as it seeks to achieve its
| particular mission.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| > We need bureaucracies that can be evaluated on efficiency
| in performance to mission.
|
| That implies that there's broad agreement on a) the mission
| of various government agencies, and b) the desirability of
| the mission or even the agency. There are large subsets of
| the American population that question the desirability and
| disagree about the mission of the ATF, DEA, INS, CIA, FBI,
| and several other agencies. Electing and appointing people
| who are good at accomplishing those missions is not enough to
| satisfy many Americans.
| tomrod wrote:
| > a) the mission of various government agencies
|
| Yes, they can typically be found on the website.
|
| > b) the desirability of the mission or even the agency
|
| Elect legislatures to remove undesired agencies. Simply
| starving them from legislated mandates is passive
| aggressive.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I suspect the filibuster will fall within the next decade. Once
| that happens I imagine we'll see more changes in federal laws:
| for better or worse.
| bombcar wrote:
| We have examples of one-party states for awhile now, and none
| of them seem to be doing much in the way of big bold strides.
| cercatrova wrote:
| China makes pretty big and bold strides, for better or
| worse.
| bombcar wrote:
| True, but China isn't (yet) a US State.
|
| Something like the Prime Law of Politics applies
| everywhere and at all times; things tend to stay the same
| even with apparently "large" political changes, because
| in mostly democratic countries, the people have what they
| want, even if they complain about it.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| We'll also see laws flapping back and fourth between
| administrations. This already happens with some funding for
| NGOs and they hate it (funding for birth control and
| abortions in sub-saharan africa is one notable example). It's
| going to be very stressful.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Should we be able to chart a consistent course on issues
| where there is no broad agreement among the people? Should
| the government involve itself in such issues at all, rather
| than leaving highly controversial purposes to be
| accomplished by voluntary means?
| ryankshaw wrote:
| to me, the biggest problems with recreation.gov are:
|
| 1) the incentive to have lotteries for things (like angels
| landing in Zion, half dome cables in Yosemite, etc) where you
| have to pay just to enter the lottery and are out your money even
| if you are not selected. none of that money goes to actually help
| maintain that national park. BOA just pockets it
|
| 2) it has completely changed the landscape of who is in the
| campgrounds from local families that went up the canyon for the
| weekend with their kids to professional #vanlife / RVers that pay
| memberships into these services that tell them exactly which
| spots to book at exactly which time 8 months in advance so they
| can continue their year round lifestyle of living on the road
| aaroninsf wrote:
| recreation.gov is one of a rare few citizen-facing sites/apps
| (another is Libby) which are _good_ in almost every way that they
| need to be.
|
| I use both of these every week, often every day; and they are
| continue to evolve to get out of the way and let me get what I
| need quickly. Perfect? No. Infinitely better than they could be?
| Absolutely.
|
| Compare the site California decided to use after opting out of
| standard consolidated solutions. It's mildly better now, at least
| it can load and refresh, but it was _god awful_ for years after
| launch.
|
| This is a _win._
| timmaah wrote:
| Mildly better is being kind to Reserve California. Florida saw
| what CA did and decided to follow in their footsteps, and now
| this new setup is the standard consolidated solution?!?
| boozthrowaway wrote:
| I worked at Booz Allen on this project for some time actually
| before moving onto other projects during my time at the company.
| If I recall correctly, the site was made in React and used the
| internal government cloud.
| my69thaccount wrote:
| Doesn't React break accessibility requirements for government
| sites?
| csharpminor wrote:
| Honestly recreation.gov is one of the few government websites
| that has a "good" user experience. I'm not a fan of BAH but I
| think they executed well in this case.
|
| While $184M may sound like a lot, compare that to the $200M+ that
| was spent on the failed launch of Healthcare.gov - taxpayers got
| nothing out of that. That work was scrapped. That website
| ultimately cost closer to $840M.
|
| What you don't see in these numbers are the insane requirements
| needed to launch successfully. It's not just building an AirBnb
| clone for parks, there is a huge amount of bureaucracy and
| stakeholder management in a national project like this.
|
| $20M in annual recurring profit also doesn't sound like that much
| in the grand scheme of things. Morally I wish it wasn't
| necessary, but practically it's impossible to deliver quality
| customer service without some form of financial performance
| incentive.
|
| Would I love to live in a world where government employs
| programmers and DIYs this stuff much cheaper and more
| efficiently? Of course. USDS and 18F are bright spots that are
| trying. But they also don't have the capacity to work on anything
| except high priority projects.
| mceoin wrote:
| Worth noting is that USDS actually played a critical role at a
| critical moment in improving the Rec.gov RFP. Charles
| Worthington deserves special commendation for his technical
| acumen in representing the people/gov't.
|
| Most government RFPs do not get this same level of technical
| oversight and - short of building an entire technical branch to
| build the actual services themselves - the rec.gov experience
| led me to believe that at least having a highly technical
| _government representative_ in the RFP process is critical to
| setting the conditions for a good outcome.
|
| Without USDS, the National Parks Service would have been left
| to navigate the technical minutia through the "helpful"
| commentary of private contractors alone.
| sbuccini wrote:
| Is there any place I can read more about this?
| tomrod wrote:
| There are a slew of new digital services firms that are trying
| to build exactly this.
|
| Government has a workforce challenge -- it is aging out, being
| starved of resources, and technology isn't core to agency
| mission(s). For decades they have outsourced to the same set of
| big companies that often failed to deliver. 18F and USDS are
| more than small departments -- they are bootcamps for the
| people who go through and then impact the the agencies and
| firms they move on to after. They were really inspired by the
| failure, then success, of healthcare.gov.
|
| 10 years ago upwards of 80% of government IT projects failed.
| This is improving.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| They also refuse to pay market rates on the basis of skills.
| packetslave wrote:
| By law, no government employee can have a salary higher
| than a member of congress (174,000).
| mandevil wrote:
| I don't think this is true. GS grades are capped by the
| compensation of Level IV of the Executive Schedule
| (sometimes with locality pay they would exceed that and
| so they get capped), which is roughly the same as
| Congress salary, but definitely SES pay tops out a good
| 25k above that.
|
| Grow up in the DC area and even if you never work for the
| Gov't directly you just absorb this information out of
| the air.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Exceptions are made for federally-employed physicians,
| which is the only reason the military is able to have its
| own doctors. They could easily do the same industry gap
| compensation bonus on top of schedule for engineers if
| the non-government market gets to be similar to the
| physician market.
| tomrod wrote:
| You might be missing some nuance. From January 2022:
|
| Level I: $226,300
|
| Level II: $203,700
|
| Level III: $187,300
|
| Level IV: $176,300
|
| Level V: $165,300
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Schedule
| mandevil wrote:
| Well, but Executive Schedule people are essentially all
| political appointees, not individual contributors. This
| is the several hundred people who get appointed by the
| President- most of them requiring Senate approval- and
| come in to be the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
| for Reserve Affairs or whatever. This is not the Civil
| Service but the political appointees who sit on top of
| them and cycle out regularly back to think-tanks or
| industry jobs when their party loses an election.
|
| (https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-PLUMBOOK-2020/
| is the full list of these positions)
| [deleted]
| count wrote:
| SES is not political appointees. SES are career
| executives, and generally serve through many
| administrations. Political appointees are usually
| 'Secretaries' and that ilk, which may be 'SES'
| equivalent, non-career/competitive appointments, but are
| not Career SES.
|
| There are TONS of SES folks below the appointee level.
| [deleted]
| tomrod wrote:
| This is due to the starving of resources: both in budget,
| and in policy to address mismatches from the market for
| employees.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I interned with the navy in college. I _wanted_ to be a
| federal employee when I graduated. I even had special
| consideration due to my internship, and my disability. Did I?
| No. I did not.
|
| The experience of trying to get a federal job was _abysmally_
| bad. First, there are precious few GS positions that actually
| do coding. Everything seems to be contracted out. The few
| positions that were there were _very_ hard to apply for. I
| applied to every position I found across 5 different states,
| and my resume simply disappeared into a bureaucratic black
| hole.
|
| After a month or so of that nonsense, I threw in the towel
| and looked for something in the private sector. The
| difference was a breath of fresh air. I got interviews in
| days, offers in weeks, and I've made enough money that I'm
| basically financially independent at this point.
|
| The government has a _long_ way to go with their hiring
| process.
| goplayoutside wrote:
| The thrust of TFA addresses the misaligned financial incentives
| and the problems inherent in outsourcing aspects of public
| lands management to entities with a profit motive.
|
| It has little to nothing negative to say about the site's UX.
| site-packages1 wrote:
| I agree with this. I am no fan of BAH for personal reasons
| having been forced to work adjacent to them, but the
| recreation.gov website is quite good and a good experience,
| coming from someone who uses it extensively for camping.
| goplayoutside wrote:
| The site's UX is not at issue.
|
| TFA focuses on the significant problem of mismanagement of US
| public lands, and the extent to which handing over such a
| large amount of control over these publicly owned resources
| to a private entity with a profit motive has lead to negative
| results.
|
| The design and functioning of rec.gov itself is not even
| tangential to the subject.
| dallasg3 wrote:
| USDS is United States Digital Service and 18F is part of the
| GSA. 18F is short for 1800 F Street, which is the address in
| Washington DC for the GSA.
|
| https://www.usds.gov https://18f.gsa.gov/about
| my69thaccount wrote:
| > 18F is short for 1800 F Street
|
| 18F sounds like a company you'd buy sketchy porn magazines or
| mail order brides from
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > Would I love to live in a world where government employs
| programmers and DIYs this stuff much cheaper and more
| efficiently? Of course. USDS and 18F are bright spots that are
| trying. But they also don't have the capacity to work on
| anything except high priority projects.
|
| Appropriate more funds. If this is an issue of citizen
| stakeholder engagement, I ask someone point in the necessary
| direction besides my Congressional reps.
| csharpminor wrote:
| Other levels of gov have funding issues, but not federal. In
| fact, big appropriation bills often create these mega-
| procurements that companies like BAH latch on to.
|
| Government's ability to attract people who could execute a
| project like this requires different compensation and career
| incentives. Base pay is capped at <$150k for the highest GS
| level at the highest step. There's also no real potential for
| bonuses or equity.
|
| Beyond pay, government careers fundamentally optimize for
| low-risk decision-making. The goal is to not get fired over
| 20 years so that you can retire with a pension. This is why
| contractors like BAH gets hired: you, as a government program
| manager, don't get fired for going with a brand name even if
| they fail. If you hire some unknown development firm with
| great tech skills and they fail, you get canned.
|
| There's also a lack of bold leadership and urgency that is
| customer-experience focused. Healtchare.gov benefitted from
| some amazing engineers, but the true catalyst for its
| comeback was that Obama realized it was a do-or-die
| initiative for his administration. His team moved heaven-and-
| earth to steamroll entrenched vendors, recruit talent, and
| hold people accountable.
|
| Leadership and talent are what make the difference.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Very much aware. Have gone through the USDS hiring pipeline
| and was extended an offer. Your tour of duty is limited
| (between 6 months-2 years) due to how they hack the GS
| payscale, and I argue USDS/18F _has_ the leadership and
| talent to deliver based on all available evidence. Matt
| Cutts did exceedingly well considering resourcing and his
| mandate, and I have similar hopes for the new USDS
| administrator. They produce results, full stop.
|
| https://www.usds.gov/report-to-congress/2016/
|
| https://www.usds.gov/report-to-congress/2017/fall/
|
| https://www.usds.gov/resources/USDS-Impact-Report-2020.pdf
| alexose wrote:
| Appropriate more funds, yes, but more importantly: Fix
| procurement. This is where there real down-in-the-trenches
| work needs to happen. Fix every single agency's approach to
| software procurement, one by one, until the entire federal
| government is properly incentivized to fund high quality FOSS
| software for the long haul.
|
| It's a little better than it used to be with FedRAMP and
| such. But even now, agencies are still relying on broken-by-
| design contracts for terrible proprietary software.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Sounds like a technology practitioner from USDS embedding
| into agencies to teach their procurement folks how to
| procure tech, correct?
| flipgimble wrote:
| For years I was musing about a camping trip to Shenandoah
| National Park which is only a couple hours away from me. However
| due to family, busy work, and laziness I would start planning too
| late and saw most spots booked on rec.gov. I would usually blame
| myself for lack of organization
|
| This year I decided to just pack my car with equipment and drive
| to SNP one very early morning. At worst I would spend hours in
| the car for a day hike. However it turns out that many camping
| spots are available on first-come-first-serve basis, and not
| online. Another group without reservations joined my camping spot
| bordering the forest and it was a fun hanging out and chatting
| with strangers. You can also find plenty of camping space near
| hiking shelters, or with a permit in the back-country provided
| you're aware of the regulations and bear safety.
|
| After that first trip, I was kicking myself for forming a mental
| model of camping as severely constrained by space and crowds. I
| think that false model formed by relying on only rec.gov and some
| online articles about how crowded the Appalachian Trail has
| become. I hear the hiking crowds visit SNP in May-June, so we'll
| see how it goes.
| uoflcards22 wrote:
| rec.gov is one of the least shitty government websites out there.
|
| With the GS pay system, we cannot expect to get decent technology
| out of our government. This is sadly the best alternative.
| goplayoutside wrote:
| TFA addresses the problems with outsourcing a significant
| component of public lands management to a private entity with a
| profit motive.
|
| The site's UX is not at issue here.
| anm89 wrote:
| This article reads like a 14 year old who is mad at society for
| the first time in their life.
|
| "That website is made by a company worth 14 Billion with a B!"
| There are around 1000 companies with a Billion or greater market
| cap. Is this supposed to be a criticism?
| goplayoutside wrote:
| Outrage at mismanagement of public lands is not uncommon
| amongst those of us who follow the issue closely.
|
| I think Paul's emphasis on BAH's financials is meant to support
| the argument that a significant element of the management of a
| publicly owned resource should not have been handed over to an
| entity that is driven by profit motive.
|
| And signing over authority over pricing and eliminating much of
| the public oversight was especially inappropriate.
| mceoin wrote:
| I was intimately familiar with the period in time during which
| Booze Allen won the Rec.gov contract. (My company was a founding
| member of AccessLand.org, a coalition of non-profit and for-
| profit orgs pushing for open data reform for America's parks.) As
| much as I want to dunk on BAH for their spook work, and more
| broadly opine on the the parasitical undermining of government by
| corporate lobbyists, it is important to give credit where it is
| due and recognize the overall-great work that BAH did on the
| rec.gov contract.
|
| People forget that before BAH, Reserve America (owned by IAC)
| used to have the federal and California contracts. RA delivered a
| terrible experience, never innovated or iterated, did the least
| amount of work possible, stripped their own internal team down to
| a skeleton crew in order to juice profits, and maximally
| leveraged their incumbency. What was supposed to be a 5 year
| contract turned into a 10 year contract, and then they leached
| out further profits by holding the transfer to BAH off for years
| through legal shenanigans. The RA team were transparently
| unethical, and in private meetings would say things that you
| might expect from a government contractor who truly thinks they
| have monopoly status and cannot be displaced. They did not have
| the user's best interest at heart.
|
| Schadenfreude is generally distasteful, but I'm not above saying
| how pleased I was to see Reserve America lose the federal and
| California contracts.
|
| By contrast, my experience with the BAH team was that they
| brought "best-practices" to the table (they ran agile sprints,
| for starters), openly dialogued with community members to seek
| feedback on how best to improve Rec.gov, and had recruited an
| internal team that obviously cared about building a great
| experience for the parks, and for the government generally. BAH
| were not actively hostile to open data ideals -- unlike other
| bidders, including RA -- and seemed to have a more inclusive
| attitude to how government can be transformed through APIs and
| open data, whereby the gov't contractor would build and maintain
| the core infrastructure, but 3rd parties could compete to provide
| better services to the public. In short, BAH operated in a good
| faith attitude and generally succeeded in building a good
| experience for users. As many comments here reflect, Rec.gov
| stands unique among many government websites and services as a
| pretty solid experience.
|
| On the downside: BAH has failed to provide full open-data access
| to 3rd parties. There is still no place online that a developer
| can register an API key and check availability data (an
| outstanding requirement of the RFP contract) -- some 3rd parties
| do have access to this data, but by failing to make availability
| data publicly and easily accessible, innovation here has been
| stymied. Conversations with 3rd parties to design and negotiate a
| 3rd party bookings API have also not materialized, as they said
| they would in good faith. These shortcomings are frustrating, and
| represent missed opportunities for BAH to continue building upon
| their infrastructure in providing a template for Govt services,
| and turning around their brand.
|
| By contrast, Xerox won the California contract; an unusable
| abomination of contractor hack work. I did not think it was
| possible to do worse than RA, but they have somehow managed it. I
| suspect, however, that this is largely through incompetence
| rather than malice on their part. Unfortunately, without a full
| availability and bookings API, no 3rd parties can improve the
| experience either so we're stuck with reservecalifornia.com for
| the interminable future.
|
| As much as I want to bag on the profit motive behind BAH, this OP
| article is missing some historical nuance about how bad things
| were, and could still be.
| subsubzero wrote:
| If you think rec.gov is bad wait until you see parks.ca.gov. Its
| probably one of the worst campsite booking sites ever made.
| Rec.gov isn't that bad imo.
| mceoin wrote:
| Brought to you by Xerox (yep!)
| [deleted]
| dmckeon wrote:
| I have no issue with online reservations or contractors, but do
| have an issue with the incentive of application fees: to enter a
| lottery for a reservation, every applicant pays a fee, whether
| they get a reservation or not. After the lottery, the contractor
| keeps all the application fees.[0]
|
| The contractor could increase their profit at very little cost
| simply by getting more people to apply for the same limited
| number of reservations. Dark pattern, perverse incentive, or
| profit model? Does even Ticketmaster have that level of chutzpah?
|
| [0] FTA:
| https://www.nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/gtsrticketedentry.htm
| timmaah wrote:
| > From a selfish standpoint, this type of system discourages
| spontaneous trips. When I did my road trip three years ago, I
| already noticed the trend of mandating an RSVP for any activity.
| I am not against any RSVPs as I understand the concept of
| resource protection, but with a greed-based system with profit
| and not sustainability as its goal, there are fewer incentives to
| set aside spots for walk-ups.
|
| The increased demand makes `walk-ups` a logistical headache for
| workers (volunteers) on the ground. If there are X amount of
| campsites available as first-come-first-served, the campground
| host then has to spend time turning away people all day when
| those spots get filled by 9am.
|
| I'm not certain what the solution is for bringing the type of
| spontaneity back that many people crave, but the reservation
| system is in place for a reason. Crazy demand for nature.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Exactly. When I went camping 20 years ago it was easy to just
| pull in to a nice park when we got tired of pulling the
| trailer. We would almost always get a campsite.
|
| No more. Nowadays there seems to be 10x the number of RVs in
| use and advance reservations are mandatory. We never even try
| to camp in places that are "first come/first served" today
| because it's completely hopeless. The only places where fc/fs
| works today are commercial RV parks where you'll pay $50-$100
| per night for a camping spot packed in like sardines with
| everybody else.
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| > The increased demand makes `walk-ups` a logistical headache
| for workers (volunteers) on the ground.
|
| I don't remember this really being a problem, though. If a site
| is unoccupied and untagged, you know it's available. Otherwise,
| it's not.
|
| But without reservations you can't reliably plan anything now,
| because of the high demand, so i understand it's not an easy
| problem.
| stinkytaco wrote:
| It's the angry stream of people you need to turn away that
| becomes the issue. It's not confusing, it's just time
| consuming and frustrating for all involved. Doubly so if
| there's an event the overwhelms your normal facilities and
| staffing.
|
| I recall a bedraggled stream of cars and park officials when
| I camped to see the solar eclipse in Nebraska. All very nice
| people, one even drove around to issue protective lenses to
| all the campers that didn't bring them, but I sure
| sympathized with those who didn't make reservations and those
| who had to disappoint them.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| I both feel it sucks while it also clearly is necessary. But I
| think they can make things more equitable and we need to invest
| money to increase access.
|
| scarce back country permits for popular places should be a
| raffle system not refresh as fast as possible. That system
| would be hard for 2 night trips, but maybe set aside like 10%
| for that, let them allocate first, then open 1 nights.
|
| imho give some chunk of preference to locals and sports/non car
| touring uses. E.g. RMNP climbing is my personal example. I've
| never had a problem getting in, but I also usually climb at
| night. The top parking lot is pretty small and filled up in the
| mornings. But people that have to carry gear should get
| preference, it's much easier to take the bus without gear. AND
| if you're staying later having to walk an extra couple miles
| with pads or bags bc the bus stopped sucks.
|
| RMNP is also just a prime example of awfulness of crowds and
| people. There are one or two trails that almost all visitors go
| on. They don't venture out even though it's such a huge
| beautiful park.
|
| Part of it is ease of trails. At least partially concrete and
| very short. But the facilities are _disgusting_ just a few
| bathrooms and people sh*t on the floor...
|
| People are awful, loud, littering, rude. Hard to fix that.
|
| Would love to discourage car touring where people stop on roads
| you can't get around. Big % of people go to the big 4 and don't
| get out of their cars for more than a couple feet to intrude on
| animals for selfies.
|
| Also cars are just awful polluters minimally try to minimize
| idling. Encourage people to actually get out in nature.
|
| I get there accessibility issues that's an able est bias, hence
| building out more easy / paved loops.
|
| We should definitely protect land and animals. But there is a
| huge amount of space to open up.
|
| Building more facilities/enforcement would better protect the
| land too.
|
| Maybe have some of those armed rangers who roll around in giant
| SUVs instead walk and stop littering (that's jest, it's crazy
| the amount of them that carry guns).
|
| Especially if you bring in and build out forest service land.
|
| Marketing might help too, there are so many amazing places that
| don't get traffic it's all going to the same few spots.
| stewx wrote:
| The solution is the same one used by airlines and hotels:
| dynamic demand-driven pricing, charging enough that you don't
| sell all your seats until the last minute.
|
| An airline that sold out of all its seats 6 months ahead of
| time would be considered incompetent, but governments do this
| all the time with reservations for various activities, because
| they are trying to "be nice" by charging low entry fees.
| kevinh wrote:
| How is that a better solution?
| stewx wrote:
| It solves the spontaneity issue. It ensures that tickets
| are almost always available, no matter when you book, even
| fairly last minute.
|
| The reason they won't do it is because it's more
| complicated to implement and people will complain in the
| media about govt "gouging" residents.
| kevinh wrote:
| Yeah, it solves the spontaneity issue by guaranteeing
| only the richest have access.
| uoaei wrote:
| It's called "public land" because it is already paid for, and
| effectively owned, by the public. I would consider a
| government who resorted to market solutions "incompetent".
| timmaah wrote:
| No. Just no.
|
| Public lands and access to public lands can't be a playground
| for the rich and entitled.
| goplayoutside wrote:
| That might be a reasonable solution for a private business,
| but it's not appropriate for public lands.
|
| Increasing prices will only exacerbate the existing issues
| around equitable access.
|
| Here's an article[1] describing a University of Montana study
| on the subject, for anyone who would like to consider the
| issue in greater depth.
|
| [1] https://archive.ph/7EDcJ
| catern wrote:
| Increasing prices will _increase_ equity. By charging rich
| people more, you can afford to give greater subsidies for
| marginalized groups and poor people, and _lower_ the price
| from whatever it is currently for them. You can even use
| that revenue to _pay them_ to go camping, if you really
| want to!
| uoaei wrote:
| Assuming those subsidies and rebates are actually
| administrated. That's a very big assumption and all
| precedent points in the opposite direction.
| goplayoutside wrote:
| Maybe.
|
| In any event, that unlikely to be helpful in this
| specific situation, as the majority of all revenues from
| rec.gov go directly to BAH[1], rather than to the public
| land management agencies responsible for stewarding the
| resources in the public interest.
|
| BAH also has price setting authority, with a dearth of
| public oversight.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31369931
| manachar wrote:
| A great example is sunrise at the peak in Haleakala National
| park on Maui.
|
| So many people were crowding the top that they started parking
| on critically endangered species and making an amazing
| experience something of a zoo. Something had to be done.
|
| The reservation approach is two pronged. One batch of the
| majority of reservations is offered well in advanced. Then
| something like 48 hours before hand the final batch is offered.
|
| This helps those who want more spontaneous while also keeping
| the numbers manageable.
|
| Bluntly, the US population has mostly grown to the point where
| we are regularly having to deal with the fact that some things
| and experiences are just limited.
|
| There's something endearing and maddening about a culture like
| ours that just flat out doesn't understand limits.
| kingcharles wrote:
| > Bluntly, the US population has mostly grown to the point
| where we are regularly having to deal with the fact that some
| things and experiences are just limited.
|
| This is the bigger problem. Not just US population, but world
| population has grown enormously, and is richer, and travel is
| cheaper. So there are exponentially more people arriving at
| tourist destinations that a hundred years ago received only a
| handful of people a week.
|
| Look at Everest. Total clusterfuck.
|
| https://s.abcnews.com/images/Nightline/190531_ntl_climber_01.
| ..
| dariusj18 wrote:
| I've been mulling over the colonial era privileges that
| people expect to be able to have. But with a greater
| population, especially a wealthier population, the old
| timey vacation that everyone imagines just isn't possible.
| This disparity is part of the loss felt by those with
| privilege.
| khuey wrote:
| For some of the things the author complains about there really
| are no good options. You can only shove so many people up the
| Half Dome cables on any given day or so many campsites in
| Yosemite Valley before it becomes a nightmare. You can't just
| build more of the experiences people are looking for in national
| parks like you can build taller buildings in a city. So your
| options are to ration by price (which NPS/etc generally don't
| do), to ration by luck (lotteries for e.g. Half Dome), or to
| ration by ability to plan ahead (far-in-advance reservations for
| campgrounds). None of these are great but what is the
| alternative?
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Make the experience so crappy that no one wants it anymore?
| khuey wrote:
| Yes, "demand destruction" is another option but I think less
| than ideal.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| It's Nature. It is crappy already. When I went up Half Dome
| in the 70s It was the middle of June and pretty hot. It's a
| long walk and all of it is steep and some of it is slippery
| and scary. But "I'm a tough mountaineer" so I didn't turn
| back. And that image/ego thing is why making it crappy will
| not work.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Read "Industrial Tourism and the National Parks" by Edward
| Abbey in Desert Solitaire. His solution is as simple as making
| people get off their asses and walk or bike, etc, rather than
| the then-current trend of building paved roads and parking lots
| ever closer to the "attractions".
|
| There is, believe it or not, an IMAX theater right outside of
| Zion that shows movies of the park. My first reaction was to be
| appalled by the brazen crassness of such a thing. In time, my
| opinion has softened: if it diverts people from coming into the
| park for nothing more than a look around, great. Let them stay
| the hell out of the park and move on to the next checkbox on
| their vacation. It'll be less crowded for those of us who do
| like to hike.
|
| Abridged version here:
|
| https://lvk104.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/polemic-industrial-t...
| stinkytaco wrote:
| Though I like this idea, as I age, I sympathize with people
| who are unable to do this for a variety of reasons. I'm sure
| those people can be accommodated, but that opens the door to
| abuse, putting us right back in this position.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| This is the solution: not only does it manage demand, it
| reduces initial and maintenance costs and decreases
| destruction of natural lands. I couldn't come up with as good
| and natural a response to this problem.
| goplayoutside wrote:
| >There is, believe it or not, an IMAX theater right outside
| of Zion that shows movies of the park.
|
| There's one in Tusayan on the way to the South Rim of the
| Grand Canyon, as well.
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