The Grand County Commission has approved a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum encouraging federal investment in Arches National Park infrastructure, citing a new executive order from President Donald Trump and ongoing concerns about visitor access and economic impacts tied to park’s timed-entry system.
The letter, approved on a 5-2 vote July 15, outlines infrastructure improvements that have been proposed over the years, including a shuttle system to reduce traffic, expanded hiking trails, a bike path, additional parking and entrance booths, a northern entrance and a modern emergency operations center. Commissioners described the letter as a way to initiate dialogue with the Department of the Interior and advocate for local considerations as federal park policy evolves.
In addition to Burgum, the letter was also sent to Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah’s federal delegation, state legislators and public lands staff.
The letter responds to Trump’s July 3 executive order, titled “Making America Beautiful Again by Improving Our National Parks.” The order directs Burgum to raise foreign visitor fees, reduce costs for U.S. residents, reinvest revenue into park infrastructure and public access and review or repeal policies that “unnecessarily restrict recreation” or limit access to national parks.
It also calls for expanded park capacity, increased international tourism and full implementation of needed maintenance.
The executive order comes amid a backdrop of major funding and staffing cuts. Recently, Congress passed a reconciliation package named “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which rescinded $267 million in previously allocated funding for the National Park Service. Since the beginning of the Trump administration this year, the park service has lost 24% of its permanent staff, according to a report from the National Parks Conservation Association. This has prompted concern among conservationists about the Park Service’s ability to meet growing demands.
Critics say the cuts could also undermine the order’s goals of expanded access, infrastructure and visitation.
Commissioner Jacques Hadler, who didn’t support the letter, called the directive “disingenuous,” noting that funding pledges are hard to take seriously given the state of the agency’s budget.
“You cut $260 million from national parks and then say you’re going to make it up out of the pockets of foreign tourists… it’s a little bit ludicrous,” he said.
While infrastructure was the primary focus of the letter, it also referenced community concerns about the timed-entry reservation system, which began in 2022 and requires visitors to reserve access during peak hours and seasons.
The system was implemented after Arches saw 118 emergency gate closures in 2021 due to overcrowding, with the National Park Service citing the need to reduce congestion, improve safety and protect natural resources. Some credit the system with easing traffic, enhancing visitor experience and preventing gate shutdowns — but others believe it may be discouraging visits and is negatively impacting the local economy.
(Eric Lee | The New York Times) Doug Burgum, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for interior secretary, speaks during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025.
Arches visitation peaked at 1.8 million in 2021. Since the reservation system began, visitation has leveled off to about 1.46 million annually from 2022 through 2024.
“You can tell that the visitation numbers have been stunted by the reservation system,” said Commissioner Brian Martinez, who wrote the letter to Burgum. “The reservation system has a capacity problem. I don’t think it can allow more than 1.4 million people.”
Those numbers could be misleading, however. In April, Cassidy Jones, a visitation specialist with the National Parks Conservation Association, told a gathering in Moab that a couple of county commissioners attended — including Martinez — said Arches was one of five national parks that changed the manner in which visitors were counted.
Cassidy said visitation slightly increased in 2024 despite the change to count fewer passengers per car — previously, four passengers were counted for every car regardless of how many people were in it — and eliminated counting work trucks.
Cassidy said the move to the new counting method at Arches showed that its data collection system was more robust than at other parks, which will come online with the new way to count visitors in the next year or two.
In 2023, 1,482,045 visitors were counted at Arches. The number shrank to 1,466,528 in 2024 under the new method. Jones said that if the previous counting system were used in 2024, the number of reported visitors would have been 1,520,000, a 2.56% increase over 2023.
“It is very likely we see similar decreases in visitation numbers at other Utah parks as the years go on and all parks update their visitor statistics programs,” said Jones in April.
In June, the commission approved a $60,000 study by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute to evaluate whether the reservation system has had a measurable impact on Grand County’s tourism economy, including visitation patterns, lodging taxes, employment and other indicators. The study is expected to conclude by December.
The original draft of the letter stated that the commission “strongly believe[s]” the reservation system is limiting visitation and harming the economy. That phrasing drew objections from Commissioners Trish Hedin, Mary McGann and Hadler, who said it contradicted the commission’s decision to fund an independent study.
“If we’ve already made those conclusions, then why spend 60 grand?” Hedin asked.
County Attorney Stephen Stocks suggested changing the wording to say the county “questions if” the system is negatively affecting visitation. That compromise won support from McGann and led to the letter’s passage. Hedin and Hadler still voted no.
(Moab Times-Independent) Tourists flock to Delicate Arch in 2021.
Commission Chair Bill Winfield said he doesn’t think the letter relates to the study.
“The study is just to end an argument that’s going on in this entire community, let alone up on this dais,” he said.
Winfield added it’s possible that the study could change his mind on perceived negative impacts of the timed-entry system on the local economy or it could reaffirm them.
“I’m going to accept that study, and I’m hoping that my colleagues will accept it as well when it comes out,” he said. “I’m not here to hope that it comes out in my favor. I just want it to come out … and be done with it.”
For the letter, commissioners also agreed to add a bullet point supporting construction of a new emergency operations center at Arches, after testimony from Steve Evers, executive director of Friends of Arches and Canyonlands. Evers said the park’s current emergency response facility is outdated and lacks plumbing, HVAC and appropriate space — despite Arches regularly ranking among the top parks in emergency call volume.
“This is not just a park issue — it’s a public safety issue,” Evers said. “Many believe this level of infrastructure should come from the government.”
“It does not meet the needs of the modern incident response,” said Evers, who also explained the nonprofit has completed a pre-design phase and professional cost estimates for the new emergency operations center. He added the cost exceeds their current fundraising capacity.
Caleb Meyer, a former National Park Service contractor who led a 2024 study on the reservation system’s first season, said the system eliminated all gate closures in 2022 and greatly improved safety and traffic flow. He warned that many of the alternatives proposed in the letter — such as shuttles, new entrances and expanded roads — would cost tens of millions of dollars, take years to implement, and may not achieve the same results.
“Nothing is less accessible than extreme congestion, ugly and costly resource damage, and swinging the gate closed,” Meyer said. “As we wait another decade or more for time-consuming, expensive and unfunded infrastructure projects … this letter to Secretary Burgum is short-sighted and deserves more thought than this commission has yet given it.”
McGann noted that many of the improvements listed in the letter had been considered by the park service before they implemented timed entry in 2022. But at the time, she said, they were deemed too expensive to realistically pursue.
“When issues of becoming overcrowded … that it was a safety hazard, all these systems were considered,” she said. “But the cost is really high and there wasn’t the money to do anything, and that’s why they chose the timed entry.”
Martinez said the letter is intended to start a conversation with federal partners and ensure local input is considered. Winfield said he didn’t expect guaranteed results, but believed it was important to act.
“It isn’t a perfect letter,” Winfield said, “but I think that it starts the conversation … The only way that you get those [infrastructure projects] is by being there, asking for them. You do not get them hoping that it happens.”
-Doug McMurdo contributed to this report.
This story was first published by The Times-Independent.