Norton Takes the Offensive Against Inflexible Park Service Bike and Golf Course Policies

July 25, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will offer an amendment today to the Interior Department Appropriations bill that requires the National Park Service (NPS) to study ways to make NPS parks in the District and throughout the nation more responsive to the diverse park communities they serve. The study is the first step towards changing current NPS policy that inflexibly treats all parks the same from, Yosemite to Dupont Circle Park. The Congresswoman has tried unsuccessfully to get important changes for parks in the District, including allowing Capital Bikeshare stations on or near parks and permitting the three golf courses in the District to be run as a public-private partnership. Both of these examples have run into existing concession concerns. However, Norton said, "NPS could negotiate concession agreements that accommodate Capital Bikeshare in the future. Moreover, another particularly harmful example of inflexibility is NPS insistence on concession contracts that do not allow capital investment, resulting in astonishing deterioration of invaluable, capital-intensive golf courses in the District. Inflexible, one size fits all policies keep Americans from using our parks for compatible purposes, such as bike stations, or worse, condemning unique iconic resources to inevitable decline."