August 17, 2003

Regional Parks

For me it started on the Patuxent a few years ago. In order to park at the place I wanted to launch from you need a permit. Maryland residents can get them for $5 for an entire year. Hey, that is fair. Us out-of-state people pay a bit more - $7 per day. Fortunately, every time I've been the guy selling permits knows it is a crock and donates a free pass to me.

Tridelphia reservoir? Forget it. Like the Patuxent something seems wrong about having to drive out of your way to one place to get a permit to paddle somewhere else. Heck, I've usually got 5 miles on the water before most permit offices open for the day. What is it with Maryland and these Regional Parks?

But today I learned Maryland pales in comparison to Virginia Regional Parks. Specifically, check out the entrance fees for the northern Virginia Regional Parks:

Admission: Park entrance fee for nonmember jurisdictions is $7 per vehicle, per day; $14 per vehicle, per week and $11 per vehicle with 10 or more passengers. An annual pass is $45. (Member jurisdictions: Alexandria, Arlington, City of Fairfax, Fairfax County, Falls Church and Loudoun) .

Ok, $7 to enter one of the parks for nonmember jurisdictions. To ENTER the park. Today at Pohick Bay Regional park that was in addition to the $3.50 launch fee for tossing a kayak in the water. $10.50 to launch a kayak into Pohick Bay, a place with no other public launching facilities.

Luckily I got in the park before they started manning the booth, so I stuck $3.50 in the envelope and went on, but another one of our trip members got nailed with the full price. $10.50! We weren't trying to launch a 25 foot BayLiner - we were launching kayaks for goodness sakes!

You know, when someone comes from out of state to visit our little piece of the planet, should we charge them more, knowing now they will never be back? Is that the goal? This here piece of earth belongs to us and we don't want you here, but legally we can't say that so we'll just charge you a huge fee to make sure you don't come back.

What? Your local taxes pay for the park and it isn't fair that non-regional people use it? That is a fair argument, but the entry fee isn't a fair use fee, it is designed to discourage! And what about State Parks? Why not charge anyone with an out of state license plate an unreasonable amount? Maybe Federal Parks should charge non US citizens a "discouragement" fee.

Piss on Regional Parks.