Cash raised by Discover Pass disappoints
JORDAN SCHRADER The Olympian
Charging admission to Washington’s public lands hasn’t so far raised the kind of money state government is counting on.
Disappointing sales of a new parking pass in its first three months leave the state parks system staring at an uncertain future. Lawmakers have mostly cut parks off from taxpayers’ help – regardless of whether the new $30 annual parking fees fill the gap. If the program fails in the long run, the parks agency says it would have to find new money or close most of the state’s 116 parks.
Popularity of the Discover Pass is sure to vary with the seasons, and maybe its first spring will bring a burst of sales that didn’t come after its July 1 debut.
But parks officials and lawmakers suspect they have also lost potential buyers because of an unpopular feature: Passes can’t be transferred from one car to another. Expect the Legislature to tackle that issue this winter.
“I heard from dozens of people personally that just said ‘I’m not buying it,’ ” said state Sen. Kevin Ranker, who is writing a proposed update to the law he sponsored that created the pass.
Complaints also come from outdoor enthusiasts surprised by extra charges on some sales or by the extent of the lands that are no longer free to the public.
Other factors could pull numbers down or up: weather, more aggressive marketing, and an option for drivers to buy the pass when renewing their license tabs, which they have been able to do only since late August when notices went out to drivers whose tabs expired in October.
DAY PASSES SELL BETTER
The passes brought in $6.5 million from July 1 to Sept. 30, with parks taking the lion’s share at 84 percent and the rest divided equally between the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The agencies’ plan calls for raising at least $64 million in the first two years. State parks officials concluded from surveys that’s how much visitors would pay.
Seasonal differences aside, that’s an average of $2.7 million a month. Proceeds met that goal in July but dipped below it in August and then plummeted in September as summer faded.
Sales of $30 annual passes are the problem, not the $10 day-use passes.
Officials figured roughly three drivers would pay for a full year for every two who paid for a single day. In practice, the day passes are selling better. More than 156,000 annual passes were sold in three months, but day passes beat projections with more than 185,000 sold.
Plenty of drivers hearing about the pass for the first time upon arriving in the woods decide to take the cheaper option, said Jennifer Quan, manager of Fish and Wildlife’s Lands Division.
“A lot of people didn’t know they needed the pass,” Quan said.
As the program goes on, she predicted, it won’t be such a surprise and drivers may plan ahead.
In Oregon, the daily fee is still by far the most popular option 18 years after the state debuted an annual pass. Day passes are cheaper there, at $5.
NOT ENFORCED EVERYWHERE
Some may park and bet they won’t be caught. If so, their odds are good in some of the state’s most prominent natural areas.
DNR, which manages places such as Mount Si, Tiger Mountain and Capitol State Forest, has handed out just six tickets to violators.
The agency has just eight officers to cover 1.9 million acres of Discover Pass territory statewide. It has “focused on education and compliance” by talking to thousands of drivers, spokesman Bryan Flint said.
Park rangers and Fish and Wildlife police officers have together handed out more than 2,900 tickets. Revenue goes to the courts.
The pass isn’t sold on DNR lands, but parks and wildlife officials sell it, and so do self-serve kiosks at some parks. There are also signs with bar codes that smartphones can scan if there’s Internet access.
PREPARING PLAN
Supporters of the pass are waiting to see what the rest of the year brings, but some assume revenue will fall short of replacing the cuts and that parks will have to ask for a lifeline from the state’s general fund – the fund that lawmakers are getting ready to slash in an emergency session.
“I think over time it’s going to pick up, but you know, we’re in an immediate crunch now,” said Jim King, a parks advocate who is the lobbyist for Citizens for Parks and Recreation.
For now, King sees the parks system getting by through the current budget period without closing parks – perhaps by delaying projects and less frequently cleaning restrooms and mowing grass.
Closing parks could be counterproductive by frustrating those who have paid for the pass, parks spokeswoman Virginia Painter said. “It has the potential to undermine our ability to raise revenue,” she said.
“That’s not to say we won’t be looking at some closures down the road, but at this time that’s not the strategy.”
Instead, the agency is putting together a plan for how it might save money in the short term and find other sources of money in the long term, which might include ideas such as tiered camping fees based on parks’ popularity.
And the three agencies are considering stepping up marketing of the pass. They haven’t paid for ads so far, relying mostly on the Discover Pass website, the news media and supporters. Gov. Chris Gregoire taped a radio public service announcement, and officials manned a booth at the Puyallup Fair, Painter said.
Painter said the agencies will ask for marketing concepts through a formal bid process.
PUBLIC RECEPTION
On a recent weekday afternoon at Capitol State Forest near Olympia, a couple of cars sat in the parking lot of Middle Waddell Trailhead. Neither had the Discover Pass. One, a Ford pickup carrying two all-terrain vehicles, belonged to a couple who said they did have passes, but not on that truck.
ATV riders Marty Ridgeway of Spanaway and Lisa Woods of Rainier reluctantly bought their passes. They said they now have to pay for parking on top of the cost of their off-road vehicle permits, even as the state closes washed-out trails, reducing the places they can drive their four-wheeler and dirt bike.
“There are a lot of other ways to save money,” Woods said. “To target us is ridiculous.”
Public reception will help decide whether the Discover Pass survives or if lawmakers give up on it as they did an unpopular $5-a-day parking fee they repealed in 2006 after three years of disappointing park attendance. They replaced it with a $5 opt-out donation to parks for drivers renewing license tabs, which is still in place and raised more money than expected, $2.3 million, in the first three months of the Discover Pass.
Washington parks attendance figures since July aren’t yet available. Decades ago as Oregon began charging for access, some people stayed away, said Oregon parks spokesman Chris Havel.
“It didn’t take very long for attendance to recover at a good clip,” Havel said.
Only some parks charge in Oregon, but those passes, other fees and some lottery revenue are enough to cover the whole parks budget.
Annual passes are the same price as Washington’s, but Oregon made them transferable between cars in 2010. The $5 daily passes account for 85 percent of sales, Havel said.
CHANGES COMING
It’s unlikely Washington’s pass is going away soon, but state lawmakers expect to make changes.
Forty-nine of them signed an August letter opposing the one-pass-per-car rule and asking agencies not to enforce it. Many have heard complaints from people upset they can’t choose to drive a different car without paying for a second pass.
State officials worried as the law was developed that a transferable pass wouldn’t raise enough money. But the parks agency said in its budget request to Gregoire that all three agencies now want to test some kind of transfers. The agencies have been polling to find out what difference it might make in who will buy passes and how many.
The agencies plan to request a new law after the surveys are done. Ranker said he would push an update in the regular legislative session that begins in January.
The Orcas Island Democrat said he’s not sure if his proposal would address surcharges that drew some complaints. A $30 Discover Pass actually costs $35 when bought online, by phone or from stores and other sellers through the Fish and Wildlife computer system. That covers the costs of the dealer and the contractor that runs the system. A few places, like REI stores, sell the pass for $32.
One way you can be sure to pay a flat $30 is to buy the pass with your license tabs.
Then there are gripes from hunting and recreation groups about just how much land requires the pass – nearly 7 million acres, or about one-sixth of Washington’s land area. That includes well over half of the 3 million acres of forest, grazing and agricultural lands managed by the Department of Natural Resources. Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark designated the lands that would qualify.
King said the pass shouldn’t be required along logging roads in the back country, only in places with trails or developed facilities such as campsites or picnic areas. Ed Owens, a lobbyist for hunting and fishing groups, agreed, saying lands used mainly for timber production shouldn’t qualify.
DNR says providing access to even more remote lands comes with costs related to damages such as garbage dumping and trails built by the land’s users, and the pass will help pay those costs. Flint said frustration was bound to come from hunters and anyone else with a favorite spot in the woods.
“It used to be free, and now we’re charging them,” Flint said.
Between that beef and not being able to transfer passes from, say, a vehicle used for hunting to another one used to haul a fishing boat, Owens said he hears some hunters are refusing to buy them at all. They can stick to Fish and Wildlife lands, where an annual hunting or fishing license gets them in without a Discover Pass.
“The hunting clubs are telling their members ‘Go someplace else,’ ” Owens said
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