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Show Zion Park Visitors Total 705,000 in 1964; I Improvements Under Way to Handle Increase The final tabulation of the ! 1964 travel statistics for Zion National Park revealed that an I all-time record of over 705,000 visitors utilized the Park last year. This 4ri increase in Park travel is about normal, according to Park Superintendent Frank R. Oberhansley, and emphasizes the increasing importance of park areas as recreational outlets. Even more pronounced is the Increase in camping, with almost 143,000 camper days being recorded. re-corded. This represents a gain of 32,000 camper days, or 29'c more than the 1903 figures. Closely correlated with the Increase In-crease in Park travel was the added number of persons taking advantage of the naturalist conducted con-ducted activities. A total of 171,-000 171,-000 people attended the evening campfire talks and illustrated lectures and approximately 160,-000 160,-000 people took advantage of the new Visitor Center and museum for general orientation. Superintendent O b e r hansley stated that 1964 marked the start of several greatly needed Park projects that will help meet the needs of an ever-increasing number num-ber of Park visitors. Foremost of these was the fiist leg, a 2.8 mile section, of the West Zion Entrance En-trance Road which will eventually eventu-ally make available the fabled Kolob Finger Canyons for visitor enjoyment. In order to alleviate the impact on the existing campgrounds in Zion Canyon which exceeded their capacities on most nights last summer, a contract in the amount of $172,263 was started to provide the water lines, sewer lines, and sewage disposal plant necessary for the proposed Watchman Campground, which will more than double the capacity capa-city of the present campgrounds. In addition, four employee residences resi-dences were started to bring employee em-ployee housing up to a suitable standard. The total combined appropriations ap-propriations for these projects amounted to $611,365.00, and will be followed by additional contracts con-tracts in 1965 and 1966 to complete com-plete these project? '"hich are all a part of the Natio. .i Park Services Ser-vices Mission 66 program. Sunt. Oberhansley emphasized that Zion National Park Is open all year, and over-night accommodations, accom-modations, meals, gasoline and other visitor services arid supplies sup-plies are available throughout the year in the nearby community commun-ity of Sprlngdale, in addition to consessioner facilities operated within the Park during each summer. cidents revealed eight occurring on the study sections in the year Ivfore the sped limit was raised as compared with only four fatal accidents during the 12 months after the speed increase was placed in etfecl. "The effect ot the 70 m. p. h. speed limit on the study stu-dy sections was to speed up the slow drivers am! slow down the fast drivers. This reduces the differences in speeds among vehicles with the consequent lncit?ase in highway safety. "The Highway Department will continue Its program of determining speed limits on Utah's highways through scientific engineering study." |
