Why do automobiles dominate the Smokies' most popular haven?
by Joe Tarr
It's 9:40 on a Wednesday morning, and 30 cars line up at the entrance to Cades Cove. The drivers wait, some of them with their engines idling, their radios on and their windows rolled up.
In 20 minutes, the park service will open the gate, ending a short, twice-a-week reprieve from cars inside Cades Cove.
I cycle out a few minutes ahead of the pack of automobiles to what is for me a startling scene—the Cades Cove loop devoid of cars. It's quiet, as I gaze out over the grassy fields to the wooded hills beyond. I'd like to stop and explore the old wooden church and homesteads, but I'm afraid to linger in any one place for long. I cycle past two hikers, and ask them what time it is. "10 o'clock. You'd better hurry," one of them answers. "The cars are coming."
By the time I make it to the gift shop, they're upon me. I get wedged in between a few of them, breathing one's carbon monoxide while another rides my back tire.
When I come upon a ranger and a photographer taking pictures of a black bear just off the road, I notice that none of the motorists stopped to watch. Perhaps they didn't see it, or didn't care. Maybe they were in a hurry.
It's hard to figure out why the National Park Service continues to allow cars almost unlimited access to Cades Cove, destroying what could be a beautiful part of the park. "You go to Cades Cove and you end up in a parking lot jam," says Stephen Smith of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "It certainly degrades the experience for those who try to walk or ride their bikes through Cades Cove."
It's tough to find people who enjoy the bumper to bumper traffic inside the Cove. Simply getting to a trailhead four or five miles into the loop can take more than hour.
"What the park service wanted to do with Cades Cove is give people an opportunity to step back in time so you could understand what life was like before the park was there," says Don Barger, Southeast regional director with the National Parks Conservation Association, a non-profit group dedicated to preserving and enhancing the national park system. "Well, you can't do that in a traffic jam. By providing unlimited access to Cades Cove, we have essentially destroyed the purpose of Cades Cove."
Yet, plenty of people still go to Cades Cove and presumably have a good time. With more than 10 million visitors annually, the Smokies are the most visited National Park in the country. Cades Cove sees 2 million visitors. Which means that if it was its own park, it would still be in the top 10 percent of the country's most popular parks, according to Diane Flaugh, landscape architect with the Smokies.
Although pollution seriously threatens the Smoky Mountains, cars driving around Cades Cove and through the rest of the park are not the biggest source, Smith says. That comes from TVA's coal power plants and exhaust from the millions of cars in surrounding cities over to the Smokies. However, eliminating 2 million cars (or more) a year from the park certainly wouldn't hurt. And it would definitely create a more natural atmosphere, Barger says.
With a little ingenuity and investment, the park could work out a system that would encourage those 2 million people to come without their cars. Many people would no doubt grumble if they were forced to leave their cars behind. But once they experienced a car-free natural park, it's doubtful many would want to return to the traffic jam version.
Barger and others believe it's possible. "They're going to have to do something," says Dean King, a Maryville resident who cycles inside the Cove almost every Wednesday and Saturday morning, when cars are banned. "The open air trams that they have at Disney, I think those would be perfect. That's the future of this Cove in here."
An obvious solution is to start an alternative fuel trolley system. Many parks—like Alaska's Denali—already ban cars from many of their roads.
In Cades Cove, buses could run every 20, 30, 60 or 90 minutes, depending on the time of day or season. Visitors could get off whenever they wanted, and when they were ready to move on, simply wave down the next bus. The buses could accommodate the elderly and handicapped. Accidents would be reduced. And cyclists, hikers, horseback riders and wheelchair users would be able to use the Cove whenever they wanted.
A bus system does pose a few obstacles—mainly, where will everyone park before getting on a bus? "You wouldn't want people to drive up the road to Cades Cove, park, and then get on a bus. Then you have to have a 200 acre parking lot in the middle of the park," Barger says.
He recommends staging areas outside the park, say in Townsend and/or Gatlinburg. This would provide businesses outside the park access to a steady base of customers, and give visitors time to unwind as they ride the bus to the Cove. They'd also be able to learn about the park and its history from an interpretive guide or recording played on the bus. "For the 10 mile drive up to Cades Cove, you're getting an interpretation—here's why these people chose to live away from the valley. When you get to Cades Cove, you're ready for the experience. All of a sudden, the reason you've come there is more evident."
Of course, if you're going to start a bus system, it'd be a shame to use smelly, noisy diesel buses, Smith says. Ron Sweeney, general manager of the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority, says that city has been running electric and hybrid buses since the early '90s with great success. One-fifth of its buses are now either electric or hybrids, and the city just ordered 11 more hybrids, which will replace old diesels.
The hybrids use a diesel turbine to recharge electric batteries and are much cleaner and more efficient than internal combustion engines. At $350,000 each, they're more expensive than $230,000 diesel buses, but cheaper to operate in terms of fuel. Plus the hybrids are hearty enough and have enough range to handle the Smokies' steep hills, Sweeney says.
Sweeney visited the park a few weeks ago with his wife and some friends. He was struck by the backwardness of allowing unlimited cars to drive around the Smokies.
"When I drove through Cades Cove, I thought about all these cars in this pristine area, belching out all those fumes. I thought, 'Wouldn't it be nice to run an electric bus system through there.' To me that's just an ideal place for it," Sweeney says.
Sweeney says the best scenario would be for the park, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Townsend and Sevierville to join in starting a hybrid bus system to move people around. But that's probably unlikely, he says. "If somebody would lead the way there, the other entities close by would soon join," he says.
The changes could be implemented slowly, Barger says. Cars could continue to be allowed for a few days a week. Also, cars would still be allowed for those staying in the campsites.
Although it makes sense to a lot of people and would make the park more enjoyable, it's not going to happen any time soon. The Park Service is going to be starting a study next year to look at Cades Cove and transportation alternatives, Flaugh says. However, any recommendations will be probably a year or two away. And it will also take in a lot of public comment. Past surveys have shown that many people like driving around the Cove. Many of them won't want to end their ritual of cruising the loop. But if the park and Cades Cove are to be protected, they may have to.
"There is an ultimate number of people that can enjoy Cades Cove at any one minute, but I don't think we've reached that number yet," Barger says. "The problem is not [that] we have 10 million people visiting the park; the problem is they come in 4.3 million cars. From the standpoint of cars, we may have maxed out."
If the current system doesn't change, the Park Service might as well give up on Cades Cove and add a second or third lane. Then fast food restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations could grow up alongside it. Maybe even a movie theater, waterpark, mini-golf course and bumper-car track.
Because if Cades Cove's one-way loop continues the way it is, it'll be tough to go on pretending that it's anything like a wilderness area.
September 28, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 39
© 2000 Metro Pulse
| 
