Franconia Notch parking survey

[DayTrip]

I went through Franconia Notch yesterday around 10:30AM and I didn't notice any signs whatsoever on side of road indicating it was not OK to park any more. Is it only posted in the official lot areas? Did I miss this info in a previous comment? Curious how people who are not all plugged into hiking forums and Facebook are supposed to know this. Plenty of cars were starting to accumulate on the highway as I went by.

 

[JToll]

I went northbound at 4:00 pm Sunday. I have never seen so many cars. No evidence of no parking signs.

 

[RollingRock]

Yeah, it's getting out of control. Not only here but other popular areas such as Tripoli Road and Appalachia. We are heading towards National Park type regulations.

Would be a first for a national forest.

 

[JoshandBaron]

I went through Franconia Notch yesterday around 10:30AM and I didn't notice any signs whatsoever on side of road indicating it was not OK to park any more. Is it only posted in the official lot areas? Did I miss this info in a previous comment? Curious how people who are not all plugged into hiking forums and Facebook are supposed to know this. Plenty of cars were starting to accumulate on the highway as I went by.

It was super foggy Sat AM but I thought I saw they had the shoulders roped off on the SB side.

 

[peakbagger]

One minor rant is that the parkway originally had permanent road side message boards on the north and south end that could be remotely programmed to display a message to all drivers entering the parkway from either direction. They were active for several years but the messages were not very helpful or up to date as I expect the agency charged with programming, most likely DOT, wasn't in the hiking loop. They were eventually unplugged and removed. There is also a large highway messaging board south of Lincoln used for weather advisories that usually is blank in the late spring and summer that is also a underutilized resource. Some sort of warning, "Lafayette Lot Full, Park at Tram lot" on this signage would serve as defacto proof that drivers were aware and elected to ignore warnings. Alternatively, the state owns multiple portable solar powered signs that could also be used at Lafayette lot entrance. "No Parking along highway, cars will be towed" would also be effective. In either case, the control of the messages on the signs need to be transferred to people who are actually in the area and can keep the messages up to date. The logical agency is the agency that runs Franconia State Park who have paid employees at the Flume, Lafayette place and the Tram. AMC can issue warnings to hut guests that they should plan to hike an extra 2 miles each way from the Tram lot if they are staying at the hut as they tend to be one most impacted by full lots due to arriving mid day.

My feeling is no agency or non profit group really wants to step up to lead a deal as any solution is not going to be popular and most likely will need to be funded. Sure there is big interagency/non profit group that allegedly has been meeting since last year outside of the public eye to come up with the "grand plan" to cover overuse of many popular easy to access trails to scenic mountains but I find it telling that despite having plenty of data on past overuse they haven't done anything publically this spring beyond "we are working on it" and posting temporary no parking signs on sporadic weekends that mostly serve to piss people off.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

It was super foggy Sat AM but I thought I saw they had the shoulders roped off on the SB side.

They did - on the north side of the ramp on the southbound side of the highway. South of the ramp, however, was full of parked cars.

Tim

 

[Mike]

Just wondering if there has ever been a documented report of an auto accident caused by the cars parked on the shoulders.

 

[peakbagger]

None I am aware of but given the potential severity I expect proactive is the way to go. Lots of tractor trailer rigs routinely come through at 50 mph or more, the sight lines are poor especially from the south. If someone steps in front of a semi with the roadside lined with cars, there is not enough distance to stop and no where to swerve to. The physics isn't good and at minimum its a wreck that will block the highway for hours and if anyone is in or near them it highly likely they are killed or seriously injured.

I have heard second hand that the state police really don't like to do enforcement in this area as its hazardous duty for them as there is no safe place for them to park and they can cause an accident when folks first see them and hit the brakes. When I do see speed traps, its usually on the northern end of the long straight stretch just north of Whitehouse bridge and the flume turnaround, there is wide shoulder after a guardrail they can sit and tag folks heading south. Rt 3 heading over to Twin Mountain and RT 115 heading up to Jefferson is a different story, it has local and state enforcement. The state police barracks is in twin mtn so the state troopers usually hand around the area near shift change. Not a lot of turnoffs and wide shoulders so its easy to write a shifts worth of tickets with far less hazard to them.

I personally have had to swerve and hit my brakes hard with my tiny Fiesta near Lafayette place to miss hikers who are parked right on the edge of the pavement and are far more focused at getting in and out of the car on the travel lane side than at the traffic zipping by. If I was driving my Unimog with a much wider wheelbase on those days , I may have owned a few drivers side doors and hopefully not a few dead or injured hikers.

 

[DayTrip]

It was super foggy Sat AM but I thought I saw they had the shoulders roped off on the SB side.

May have missed that. Were cars on Northbound side and I don't believe there were any ropes.

 

[DayTrip]

None I am aware of but given the potential severity I expect proactive is the way to go. Lots of tractor trailer rigs routinely come through at 50 mph or more, the sight lines are poor especially from the south. If someone steps in front of a semi with the roadside lined with cars, there is not enough distance to stop and no where to swerve to. The physics isn't good and at minimum its a wreck that will block the highway for hours and if anyone is in or near them it highly likely they are killed or seriously injured.

I have heard second hand that the state police really don't like to do enforcement in this area as its hazardous duty for them as there is no safe place for them to park and they can cause an accident when folks first see them and hit the brakes. When I do see speed traps, its usually on the northern end of the long straight stretch just north of Whitehouse bridge and the flume turnaround. I have seen a trooper just over the crest of the hill on the south bound lane with the radar on but mostly they are just flashing the blues. Rt 3 heading over to Twin Mountain and RT 115 is different story, it has local and state enforcement. The state police barracks is in twin mtn so the state trooper usually hand around the area near shift change. Not a lot of turnoffs and wide shoulders so its easy to write a shifts worth of tickets with far less hazard to them.

I personally have had to swerve and hit my brakes hard with my tiny Fiesta near Lafayette place to miss hikers who are parked right on the edge of the pavement and are far more focused at getting in and out of the car on the travel lane side than at the traffic zipping by. If I was driving my Unimog with a much wider wheelbase on those days , I may have owned a few drivers side doors and hopefully not a few dead or injured hikers.

Seems almost impossible that there hasn't been a bad accident there. I can think of many, many times that I have driven through there where tourists have been all over the highway, especially during big holidays like Columbus Day weekend. Once there were about 10 people in the median of the highway taking photos of the wildflowers and cars were lined a mile in either direction on the highway. I drove through there doing about 40 mph just waiting to hit something. Was crazy. I can imagine pulling out of one of the official lots on such a weekend with cars everywhere along the actual ramps and road is quite an adventure. Just hit the gas and hope for the best.

 

[TCD]

From the USFS website: "Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the Forest Service, summed up the mission of the Forest Service: "to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run."

Lots of hikers using the forest for healthy recreation is good for the economy, and it's good for the physical and mental health of the hikers. Overall, this is a good thing. And all these people hiking is the current reality, and it's not going to change. It won't solve any problems to hold up our hands and say "not happening, not happening" and imagine that we can turn the clock back to 1980.

What's lacking is management, which costs money. Need more parking lots, bathrooms, trailhead educators, rangers, trail maintenance crews, etc. All costs money, so it doesn't get done until it's an emergency. Same exact problem here in the Adirondacks.

It's just like a traffic light that's needed at a suburban intersection, which doesn't get installed until someone gets killed. Sadly, I expect improvement here will also have to be paid for with a life. When someone gets killed walking along the highway, all of a sudden there will be money and willpower to build an adequate parking facility.

 

[skiguy]

From the USFS website: "Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the Forest Service, summed up the mission of the Forest Service: "to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run."

Lots of hikers using the forest for healthy recreation is good for the economy, and it's good for the physical and mental health of the hikers. Overall, this is a good thing. And all these people hiking is the current reality, and it's not going to change. It won't solve any problems to hold up our hands and say "not happening, not happening" and imagine that we can turn the clock back to 1980.

What's lacking is management, which costs money. Need more parking lots, bathrooms, trailhead educators, rangers, trail maintenance crews, etc. All costs money, so it doesn't get done until it's an emergency. Same exact problem here in the Adirondacks.

It's just like a traffic light that's needed at a suburban intersection, which doesn't get installed until someone gets killed. Sadly, I expect improvement here will also have to be paid for with a life. When someone gets killed walking along the highway, all of a sudden there will be money and willpower to build an adequate parking facility.

Simple solution. Build toll booths at either end of the notch along with informative “No Parking along side of road signs”. Donate all proceeds to SAR. If your gonna play your gonna have to pay.

 

[Mike P.]

I was surprised that there really was no parking on the ADK Loj road this weekend. I suspect that they have either ticketed or towed people to get compliance. Meadow Lane picked up a bunch of the overflow from the HPIC Center lots.

Does anyone know if Cannon runs a shuttle during ski season? Loon does. The Cannon lot would be large enough for parking and both the Parkway and Cannon (I Believe are state owned, if there is a fatality, expect the victim's family to sue the state for not maintaining a safe environment and they should know of the conditions.) If Cannon ran a snack bar or convenience store, they would probably get some sales also as most people would end up parked there is you enforced parking. (Walk through the gift shop to catch the shuttle)

You could either have AMC or the State run it, or a 3rd part vendor.

 

[sierra]

Simple solution. Build toll booths at either end of the notch along with informative “No Parking along side of road signs”. Donate all proceeds to SAR. If your gonna play your gonna have to pay.

I work for the State in the Turnpike division. No way will you ever see tolls there, never.

 

[peakbagger]

We are looping back to the earlier parts of thread which covered possible solutions.

 

[skiguy]

I work for the State in the Turnpike division. No way will you ever see tolls there, never.

Other than working for them do you have any other information that would support your statement “Never Ever”?

 

[DayTrip]

Simple solutions are not always the cheapest solutions. I'd think the expense of even basic toll booths would be a huge deterrent to making that happen. I'd think the vast majority of non hikers would have huge objections to paying to drive back and forth on what is essentially the only way through the notch. Would make a crap ton of money eventually though depending what they charged.

 

[DayTrip]

I was surprised that there really was no parking on the ADK Loj road this weekend. I suspect that they have either ticketed or towed people to get compliance. Meadow Lane picked up a bunch of the overflow from the HPIC Center lots. .

I was warned about this the first time I went to NY. Got an early start so the lot was not a problem. Parked about 7 cars in from the trail head. Coming out though they had cars parked at least a mile down the access road on both sides. Didn't see any tickets on windshields. All the cars appeared to have the rear view mirror hang tags in them. It was a total free for all driving out with people walking right up the road, car doors open, etc. Wondering if they make exceptions for special events at the lodge maybe? I had read in the New York forum or maybe ADK Forum that parking enforcement was going to be stepped up this year in response to the massive overcrowding. Suppose this comment belongs somewhere else but NH seems like it is moving in the same direction to limit number of people before things "really unravel". Trails are already taking a serious beating and maintenance is falling behind. Do we really want MORE people gaining access to these areas?

 

[skiguy]

We are looping back to the earlier parts of thread which covered possible solutions.

Whoops...Doesn't hurt sometimes to revisit some ideas that could possibly be expanded upon.Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

[peakbagger]

Well someone had to ask and this is the best explanation on why toll booths aren't going up anytime soon

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/tollroad.cfm

There has been debate in Maine to pull the toll booths on the Maine turnpike but the argument is why get rid of cash cow?. NH has the same approach as drivers on I 95 are reminded of when driving to Maine.

There are observations that the development of the central and northern whites is consequence of the parkway and the subsequent connection to I 91. The old standby is that folks generally use a 2 to 3 hour drive as the limit for day trips and seasonal homes. Once the distance gets out of the 2 to 3 hour radius folks will tend to overnight. Many frequent hikers including former and some present VFTT folks started out tenting and then transitioned to a camper at campground (twin mountain was popular). Talk to folks who hiked in the 1960s and seventies and they tended to come up for the weekend and camped if they were hiking many of the 4KS as the drive was too long. RT 3 through the notch was quite slow. Places like Littleton were run down beat up old towns as they were outside the magic 2 to 3 hour radius. Arguably Twin Mountain benefitted as it was low cost place to overnight with good access to the summits. Once the parkway got built and the 55 mph limit ceased to be enforced the 2 to 3 hour limit expanded to north of Franconia Notch, Littleton become for about a decade the "best small town in the US" and lots of folks moved up along with their businesses as the better roads and higher average speeds put them on the fringe of the radius with the bonus that it was in the backyard of the whites. I think that spelled the doom of Twin Mountain as folks decided to day trip rather than stay over and several of the campgrounds slowly closed down as the lack of profit meant lack of investment in the facilities. These days with a default 80 MPH speed limit on I93 and a default 50 MPH in the parkway folks routinely drive up from mass and southern NH to day hike almost all the 4ks although Moriah and Cabot remain a long drive. The other big change to the north country was the state of NH rebuilt and built a new stretch of RT 115 from Twin Mtn to RT 2 skipping a couple of towns and really straightening it out. If the Conway bypass had been built it would have sped up things up RT 16 even more.