PARKWAY GENERAL MANAGEMENT PLAN

The Blue Ridge Parkway is in the process of developing a long-range General Management Plan that will guide the development, management, and direction of the park for decades to come.  The initial process involves gathering the input of neighboring communities and interest groups, as well as the general public.  Listed below are the answers to some of the common questions you may have about this process:

A general management plan (GMP) provides a vision for the future of a park. It is the guiding document that describes for the public and for Congress how the park will be managed into the future. Its purpose is to map out management direction for how best to protect park resources, how to provide a high quality visitor experience and what kinds of facilities are needed.   The Blue Ridge Parkway Plan will also have a significant section on the roles and responsibilities of our partners and our surrounding jurisdictions in helping us achieve our management goals and the role of the parkway in influencing theirs.  A GMP does not include site or facility designs, resolve all park issues, or guarantee funding for the park. Rather, GMPs describe the general path the National Park Service intends to follow in managing the Blue Ridge Parkway over a 10 to 15 year period.

Why is doing a GMP so important?

With a completed GMP, Congress knows what the park needs. When requests for additional funding and staff positions are presented, they are more likely to be supported. The process helps the park define and minimize safety issues, establish high quality visitor experiences and prioritize preservation goals, allowing the park to focus on managing to resolve key issues and to make tough decisions easier.

Why are we doing it now?

The plan will take three to four years to complete. There are five basic steps: 1) reconfirming the park purpose and significance while scoping issues with various publics (including park staff) 2) collecting and analyzing resource data 3) creating a set of reasonable alternative concepts 4) analyzing the impacts of the alternatives and selecting a preferred one and 5) preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and getting a Record Of Decision (ROD).   The planning team spent the last four months gathering information about park resources, park visitors, and the surrounding communities. This process will continue throughout the year. Hundreds of helpful suggestions and ideas were received from park staff and community partners at our fall meetings and hundreds more will be received at meetings with partners, friends, neighbors, technical experts, local and regional government representatives, and visitors this season. The planning team convenes regularly to explore the relative advantages and disadvantages of each suggestion. By the end of the first year, the planning team will synthesize all the ideas and information gathered into a few central concepts. As you can imagine, ideas for management of the park will vary widely. The foremost goal of the synthesis process is to develop several management concepts that express the broad range of people’s different points of view while remaining faithful to the central mission of the park.

How can visitors and private citizens be involved?