$15 to park at a state park (Empire, Diablo: to live in, costs, activity)

[steel7]

Parking outside the park is fine unless you have alot of stuff to unload, etc. 15 bucks a pop is too much but the foul legislature & govenor dont care what we think.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by steel7

Parking outside the park is fine unless you have alot of stuff to unload, etc. 15 bucks a pop is too much but the foul legislature & govenor dont care what we think.

Its also tough to park outside when all you have is a busy highway with no parking allowed.

[BacktoBlue]

15 dollars isn't that bad. If you go hiking every freaking day then yeah it is, but if you're going every once in a while then it's fine!

[Snort]

If I pay $15 for parking, I'm leaving with a smile on my face. Following on the ranger training program idea, here's a catchy slogan for CA State Parks: "Come to a state park, where more than just the wind blows."

[Voyageur]

Originally Posted by SoCalBrad

15 dollars isn't that bad. If you go hiking every freaking day then yeah it is, but if you're going every once in a while then it's fine!

If you go hiking every freaking day, you buy the annual pass for $125, which gets you into 249 of the 280 California State Park system units - the ones excluded from this are the State Vehicle Recreational Areas (SVRAs) and the locally-operated (ie, run by a country or a city, such as Placerita Canyon State Park, which is run by Los Angeles County) units.

[Axxlrod]

This bugs me. I pay more than enough in state taxes to have to be robbed of $15 to park my car.

I think cars with CA license plates should get to park free, as those people have paid into the system already. Cars with out of state plates (tourists) should have to pay, as they haven't paid into the system.

[mongoosedn]

It would be great to be able to go to any park free, but it should be obvious to anyone that parks are low on the priority list when it comes to getting a share of tax dollars.

Looking at the Department of Parks and Recreation's proposed 2010-11 budget here, http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/StateAgenc...00/agency.html, it gets about $500 million out of $113 billion in state funds, or about 0.4% of the state's funds. Yeah, so either the parks charge their users or a whole bunch of them get shut down. So while I'm not happy to dole out $10 to park inside Torrey Pines State Park, at least I know that my money is helping them stay open (unless some politician is pilfering their funds ).

[humboldtrat]

Originally Posted by Bluesmama

$15 to park anywhere is too much. They may as well change the name from "parking" to "admssion".

You should try parking at an airport or in downtown San Francisco, then you will think $15 is cheap.

[canibeyou]

Whatever they do, Sacramento shouldn't stop/ cut back spending... just keep nickle and diming the working man to death to pay for your overspending.

Another nice way of keeping families from spending time together... outdoors, workin' on their weight while having fun and enjoying nature.

[Highnlite]

Another nice way of keeping families from spending time together... outdoors, workin' on their weight while having fun and enjoying nature.

Ready, Fire, Aim.

The entire State Park system consists of 1.3 million acres in California.

National Forest Lands consist of 20 million acres, mostly free except for the mis guided Adventure pass areas.

Bureau of Land Management lands consist of 15 million acres of overwhelmingly free access.

So, 35 million free acres for families to spend time together, outdoors, working on their weight while having fun and enjoying nature.