Though paying admission to national parks is a controversial topic because of their categorization as “public land,” the implementation of a small parking fee at Kennesaw Mountain will go great distances in an effort to preserve this beloved national park.
When examining the budget for the Department of the Interior — which manages all national resources within the country — the requested funding for the National Parks Service is $2.4 billion. While this seems like a very large amount of money, it is not enough to maintain 418 National Parks and 306,000 jobs.
Due to the lack of national funding for the National Parks Service, a large portion of some 400 parks in the United States are forced to charge admission fees, ranging from $5 to $25.
Eighty percent of the fees collected in any given park stay in the park, and on a national level, the fees are used to offset some $11.6 billion deferred maintenance fees every year, according the National Parks Service website.
According to PayScale, the average yearly salary for a park ranger is around $39,883. If one is to consider the amount of work that this job entails, there is little argument against park rangers deserving a higher salary.
Kennesaw Mountain is a heavily trafficked park, with over 2.5 million visitors in 2017, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. A park with so many visitors naturally requires more upkeep than those that are less frequented.
With the incorporation of a small parking fee, the rangers at the park would be better enabled to preserve not only the nature of the park but also the historical sites there.
This justification of a parking fee on public lands may be disputed, but what should not be disputed is that national parks require more funding to properly function and compensate their employees.
Though the fee is not ideal, it is not an unreasonable reform. Over 100 national parks across the U.S. charge admission fees — making this an already accepted standard.
There are other benefits to charging a small fee as well. When someone has to pay for something, it is more likely that they will treat it with more respect.
The idea of a parking fee at Kennesaw Mountain is not meant to discourage the use of public land, but to instead instill a sense of pride in the patrons.
The main goal of the national parks system is the preservation of the natural world. Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was an early pioneer of conservation and responsible for the creation of the NPS.
“We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible — this is not so,” Roosevelt said. “It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one’s sum of happiness if he or she grows to know..how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature.”
It is the job of the people and the government to preserve and protect our natural world. In paying a fee and giving the park rangers more resources, the beauty of Kennesaw Mountain will be better preserved for the generations that come after ours.
