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"This is a whole new way of going about the business of both transporting visitors in the park as well as providing them opportunities to get out of their cars and bike and walk," said Tony Jewett, senior regional director of the Northern Rockies National Parks Conservation Association.

The first phase of building, which kicks off Saturday, carries a price tag of $9.75 million and aims to complete an 8-mile segment of the pathway by the fall of 2009, said Jackie Skaggs, public affairs specialist for the park.

Until now, bicyclists in the park have shared the road with motorists, but a tragedy in 1999 helped spur the initiative to build new pathways.

Thirteen-year-old Gabriella Axelrad was bicycling on a park road during a summer vacation when she was killed by a driver, Skaggs said. Her death "did have an impact on the movement toward coming up with a transportation plan that included pathways."

In addition to increasing safety, Skaggs said, the new paths are designed to minimize bicyclists' and other visitors' exposure to the noise and exhaust of cars.

"It is a unique, visionary and creative transportation plan for a national park," Jewett said, in part because the pathways will be built in several stages, ensuring that ecological impacts are monitored before further development proceeds.

Pathways would mean new barrier for wildlife

One concern that has arisen is whether laying more pavement will have a negative impact on wildlife populations by creating an additional boundary through their habitat.

Sterling Miller, a senior wildlife biologist with the National Wildlife Federation, had advised the park against building the new paths too far from the roads, to avoid creating new barriers for animals to navigate.

Grizzly bears, for example, have gotten somewhat used to cars passing through, Miller said. But they can be more dangerous to people if they are surprised by them, he said.

"From the standpoint of the wildlife, the best thing to do would be to have separate lanes on the same roads," he said.

Skaggs said the park took that into consideration in finalizing its plans. Of the new pathways, 18.8 miles will be built into the existing road corridor, the area engineered and cleared for the road. The other 22.5 miles of paths will be built outside of the existing corridor but will remain within about 50 feet of the road.

"The areas where it's going to be within the road corridor were specifically targeted to be in those locations to minimize disruptions to more dense wildlife areas," Skaggs said.

Keeping the paths within 50 feet of the existing road "seems like a very, very reasonable distance," Miller said. "That seems to have followed our recommendations exactly."

Preparing for the next 100 years

Grand Teton is one of the many parks across the country taking on new projects as the National Park Service approaches its 100th birthday in 2016.

To commemorate the event, the Bush administration has pushed for the Centennial Challenge, a proposal that calls for $100 million per year for 10 years in private donations, to be matched dollar-for-dollar by Congress. The additional funds would be added to the federal funds the parks receive each year and would pay for new projects and restoration in the parks.

Park officials and advocacy groups say the nation's parks are desperately in need of extra cash, as the annual federal funding isn't enough to keep up with much-needed infrastructure repairs and staff shortages.

Grand Teton is no exception. "We definitely have a maintenance backlog, as many national parks do," Skaggs said. The park has also seen a reduction in its staff, and its aging wastewater and water systems need repairs, she said.

The centennial initiative, which allocated about $50 million to the parks last year through federal funds and private donations, is considering similar legislation for next year.

The first round of projects was announced last month and included efforts to save endangered sea turtles along the Texas coast, constructing a trail in Georgia's Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and constructing a solar array at a ranger building in Washington's Mount Rainier National Park (E&ENews PM, April 24).

While the Grand Teton pathways project was under way before the centennial program was unveiled, Skaggs said the park hopes to finance several future projects through the initiative.

On the park's wish list are programs including the creation of a new display for American Indian artifacts, restoring historic structures and working with youth conservation corps to maintain the park's existing trails, Skaggs said.

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