USU Researchers Study Traffic Patterns in Grand Teton National Park

When you visit a national park, what do you expect to see? Breathtaking scenery? Fascinating wildlife? A lot of visitors in vehicles just like yours?

Utah State University ecologist Christopher Monz is leading a three-year, National Park Service-funded study of visitor traffic and use patterns in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Just a year into the project, Monz and his team, which includes USU human dimensions of ecosystem science and management doctoral student and field leader Ashley D’Antonio, former USU engineering professor Kevin Heaslip (now of Virginia Tech) and co-investigators from Penn State University, are already discovering interesting, and somewhat surprising, results.

“Our recently completed technical report looks at the Moose-Wilson Road in the southern part of the park,” says Monz, associate professor in USU’s Department of Environment and Society and the USU Ecology Center. “What we’re seeing is a large number of people using the eight-mile corridor spend less than 30 minutes in the area.”

What does that mean? Monz is reluctant to jump to conclusions as he and his team carefully analyze data they collected during 2013 and this year, including winter use data.

Findings reveal a nearly even split between in-state and out-of-state motorists and drivers tend to be passing through rather than biding their time. Each day during the park’s peak summer season, some 5,400 people in about 2,000 vehicles enter the corridor, which links the Teton Village area to a number of popular park destinations.

“The Moose-Wilson Road winds through an especially scenic portion of the park featuring unique wildlife,” Monz says. “So you would expect visitors to slow down, stop and spend time out of their vehicles. But that’s not always the case.”

To conduct their studies, Monz and his team are using GPS technology pioneered at USU to track hikers and vehicles, including passenger cars and bicycles, traveling through the park. His team members, USU Quinney College of Natural Resources graduate and undergraduate students Jessica Anderson, Dan Blair, Sara Hansen, Abby Kidd, Pete Morrone, Amy Rohman, Adrian Roadman, Annie Weiler and Eden Williams; USU graduate engineering students Trent Andrus and Tony Fuentes; University of Wyoming interns Shannon Glenden, Meghan Neville, Nicole Reed and Amy Saville; and Penn State faculty researchers Peter Newman and Derrick Taff and students Lauren Abbott and Jenn Newton, also interview hikers, motorists and cyclists about their park visits.

“The reception by visitors to our surveys has been amazingly positive,” Monz says. “Very few people decline to be surveyed. People care about the park.”

Monz’s study is an example of science-based research the NPS relies on to determine planning needs and develop park management plans. A challenge for the NPS, he says, is allowing visitors as much access to park resources as possible, without jeopardizing resources and creating an experience that “isn’t park-like.”

“Our job, as scientists, is to understand current characteristics and impacts of visitor use, understand what motivates people’s visits to the park and understand how visitors are engaging with the park’s resources,” he says. “Luckily for me, I have the best field crew in the world. We’re providing an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to NPS management challenges.”

Monz calls the study an ideal training project for students.

“We’re putting future park managers in the field, shoulder-to-shoulder with professionals,” he says. “Our students are getting first-hand experience interacting with the public and tackling fundamental questions about sustainable transportation in national parks.”

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