Entry to US National Parks Will Cost More

US authorities have unveiled a new plan to hike entrance fees at national parks with more modest increases than the ones proposed last year, the media reported.

The proposal unveiled by the National Park Service on Thursday calls for raising fees at many national parks by around $5 in the next year, with some seeing an additional increase in 2020, reports CNN. The new plan will apply to the 117 national parks that charge fees, not to the two-thirds of national parks that do not have entrance fees, the agency says.

The entrance fee for the Grand Canyon, the nation's most popular park that charges an entrance fee, will climb by $5 to $35 per vehicle starting June 1.

An annual pass for the Grand Canyon will climb by $10 to $70, according to the park service numbers.

The original proposal, unveiled in October 2017, called for more than doubling peak-season admission at 17 popular parks to $70, reports CNN.

The response to that plan was highly negative, according to the Interior Department.

Increasing entrance fees will help the park service address a nearly $12 billion backlog of maintenance projects, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has said.

The National Parks Conservation Association, a non-profit group that opposed the original $70 proposal, said Thursday that the "more measured fee increases will put additional funds into enhancing park experiences without threatening visitation or local economies".

IANS