Parks and People: Managing Outdoor Recreation at Acadia National Park

16. Design and Implementation of a Monitoring Plan for the Carriage Roads

16Design and Implementation of a Monitoring Plan for the Carriage Roads Application of the Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (verp) framework to the Acadia carriage roads resulted in a series of indicators and standards of quality for the visitor experience (Jacobi and Manning 1997). (Research supporting formulation of these indicators and standards is described in chapter 2.) Accordingly, these indicators must be monitored to determine if standards of quality are being maintained and to guide management of the carriage roads (National Park Service 1997). This chapter briefly reviews the indicators and standards that were formulated, describes several methods that are used to monitor indicator variables, outlines principal findings from this monitoring program, and offers some conclusions on the lessons learned from this monitoring program. Indicators and Standards of Quality Since the carriage roads are a highly engineered and “hardened” system of gravel roads, few resource-related impacts are associated with their use. Accordingly , indicators and standards for the carriage roads focused on experiential concerns, including crowding and conflicting uses (or “problem behaviors”). Indicators of crowding were expressed in three equivalent ways: (1) persons-per-viewscape (ppv) seen along typical 100-meter sections of the carriage roads, (2) the total number of visitors using the carriage roads per day, and (3) the percentage of visitors having a “high-quality” experience on the carriage roads (defined as the percentage of visitors reporting an acceptability value of at least two on the nine-point response scale used in the program of research (Manning, Negra, et al. 1996; Manning, Valliere, Wang,  This chapter is a compiled and edited version of periodic National Park Service monitoring reports (as cited in the chapter) prepared by Charles Jacobi. M O N I T O R I N G  et al. 1998; Manning, Valliere, Ballinger, et al., 1998). (The ways in which these standards were formulated and expressed in equivalent terms are described in chapters 2 and 17.) Standards for these indicators were set for two spatial and temporal zones that had been established for the carriage roads. Indicators of conflict focused on four problem behaviors identified by hikers and bikers: (1) excessive bicycle speed, (2) bicycles passing from behind without warning and startling hikers, (3) hikers walking abreast and obstructing bikers, and (4) dogs off-leash (Manning, Negra, et al. 1996; Manning, Valliere, Wang, et al. 1998; Manning, Valliere, Ballinger, et al., 1998). Standards for these indicators were expressed in terms of the percentage of carriage road visitors experiencing more than two occurrences of these behaviors per two-hour period (the average length of stay on the carriage roads). Standards were set for the two spatial and temporal carriage road zones. Monitoring Crowding A simulation model of carriage road use (described in chapter 17] estimates that as long as total daily use of the carriage roads remains under 3,000 visitors, then ppv standards in each zone will be met and 80 percent of carriage road visitors will have a high-quality experience, at least from the standpoint of crowding. Therefore, much of the monitoring program for crowding is directed at estimating the total daily use level of the carriage road system. This is done by using an electronic trail counter at one location along the carriage roads (a busy site on Eagle Lake, 0.3 miles from the nearest parking lot) and estimating total carriage road use based on the statistical relationship between trail-counter readings and a series of censuses of carriage road use. Twelve one-day censuses were conducted in which park staff and volunteers counted all visitors entering the carriage roads at all major access points between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (Jacobi 1997). The resulting statistical relationship between trail-counter readings on those days and total use levels allows estimation of total use levels based on trail-counter readings. When the Island Explorer shuttle bus system began operation in 1999, there was concern that visitor use patterns on the carriage roads may change and that this might invalidate the assumptions of the simulation model of carriage road use. So additional censuses of carriage road use were con- D E S I G N A N D I M P L E M E N T A T I O N O F A M O N I T O R I N G P R O G R A M  ducted, and a...