About Transportation

The National Park system includes more than 85 million acres of land in 428 national park units. These units are in every state and include national parks, national parkways, national monuments, national historic sites, national military parks, national battlefields, national memorials, national recreation areas, national scenic waterways, and national seashores. To reach these sites, visitors depend on accessible and safe transportation facilities such as trails, roads, bridges, ferries, transit, and more.

Today, the National Park Service's transportation system includes:

• 5,600 miles of paved roads
• 7,500 miles of unpaved roads
• 1,338 road bridges
• 61 tunnels
• Approximately 100 transit and ferry systems with 26 million passenger boardings
• 1,100 miles of transportation trails
• Approximately 200 trail bridges

A report summarizing the achievements of the National Park Service’s Federal Lands Transportation Program (FLTP) for fiscal year 2023 is now available.


Learn more about transportation in parks yesterday, today, and tomorrow below!

Multimodal Transportation

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  Bike and Ped = Active Transportation

  Bikes, Pedestrians & Multi-use Trails

  Trails connect places in a way that allows visitors to leave their cars behind. Bike shares help urban travelers navigate parks.

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  Powerful People Movers

  Buses & Shuttles

  Buses and shuttle systems help alleviate the impacts of private automobiles on your national parks and reduce congestion.

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  Tours and Transportation

  Ferries and Water-Based Transportation

  Almost 13 million passengers ride ferries in national parks each year.

Infrastructure & Stories

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  Making the impossible possible

  Bridges

  Spanning rivers and valleys, bridges were an essential part of the making of America.

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  Harnessing the Power of Water

  Canals

  Canals have witnessed history, bringing goods and people to places that would have otherwise been difficult to reach.

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  How Autos Changed the World

  Roads, Routes and Highways

  National Parks and cars grew up together. As automobiles evolved, so did National Parks.

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  Crossing a continent

  Trains and Railroads

  Running on rails, trains traversed the north american continent and brought a nation together quicker than ever imagined.

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  Roads to the Future

  Transportation and Social Change

  Transportation helps people and goods get from ”A” to “B,” but these networks also inspire social change and foster the spread of ideas.

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  Moving Mountains

  Tunnels

  Tunnels cut through mountains and shave days off of journeys, greatly advancing transportation in America.

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  Moving men and supplies

  War and Transportation

  Many of Americas early battles took place at the junction of roads and railways or bridge crossings and depended on moving men and supplies

Related Subjects

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  Soaring to New Heights since 1937

  National Park Service Aviation