Wall Street Journal: "National Park Crowds Are Up. Staffing Is Down. Visitors Are Losing Out."

THE Wall Street Journal: “National Park Crowds Are Up. Staffing Is Down. Visitors Are Losing Out”

As the official philanthropic partner of the National Park Service, the Trust for the National Mall brings corporate and private philanthropic funding to augment federal funding for the National Mall to ensure this iconic American space endures and inspires for generations.

The August 19, 2024 Wall Street Journal story highlights the current and longstanding gap in federal funding for our national parks — shining a spotlight on the urgency and critical nature of our work to bring expertise, private donations, volunteer service and educational programming to support the National Park Service on the National Mall.

The National Mall is our nation’s most meaningful and most visited national park. To learn more and support our mission to restore, preserve and elevate the National Mall and its historic purpose, go here.

S T O R Y E X C E R P T S:

“Officials now face difficult choices about how to manage some of America’s most prized parcels of land. In smaller parks, they close visitor centers and bathrooms and stop tours when they don’t have staff to manage them. Travelers say they’ve come to expect reduced services or to spend a good chunk of their day waiting in line at popular parks. Rangers report more vandalism and damage.”

“The Park Service does not get a budget increase when gas prices go up or utility costs go up,” says Jon Jarvis, former director of the National Park Service from 2009 to 2017. “They just have to absorb it.”

“'The National Park Service manages an appropriated budget of about $3.5 billion when it needs closer to $5 billion for staffing and capital improvements, says Kristen Brengel, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.”