Pick a Park, Any Park
Dateline: 07/13/00
The National Parks Service enters the E-government arena with a pair of Web sites designed to help vacationers find exactly the right park or parks to visit.
Start at Recreation.gov, where you select a state (or states) and the activities or services you want. For example, by clicking on biking, camping, climbing, fishing and wilderness areas in California, you get a selection of ten national parks and forests in California offering all of those features. Clicking on an individual park pulls up a page of visitor information including maps of how to get to the park.
The list of possible activities includes 23 items from auto tours and fishing to hiking and horseback riding, as well as services for groceries, lodging, supplies and pet accommodations.
Public Lands "Roadless" Rule Opposed: Last October, President Clinton issued this Memorandum proposing the "Roadless Initiative" -- a regulation to be administered by the National Forest Service that will prohibit new road construction or reconstruction of existing roads on more than 40 million acres of public lands currently designated as roadless or wilderness areas. The proposed rule has received sharp criticism from many groups including residents, ranchers, farmers and recreational users of the areas involved who feel the action illegally limits or prevents their access to public land. What do you think? Read or post opinions on the Roadless Initiative here. |
The Recreation.gov database, running on a server donated by the Hewlett-Packard Co., selects parks from a list of:
- 371 National Parks
- 114 National Forests
- 422 National Wildlife Refuges
- 260 Bureau of Land Management sites
- 457 Army Corps of Engineers sites
- 241 Bureau of Reclamation sites
If you're looking for a park based on a certain theme, try Visit Your Parks, also from the National Parks Service. Here, you select from a list of 17 "special topics" from American presidents to wildflowers. You can also select activities, the type of parks you want to visit, and the location.
Clicking on a park returned by the search takes you directly to the park's Web site where you will find complete visitor information.
Related Links
United States Government Electronic Commerce Policy
News and progress reports on government efforts to advance and protect business on the Internet.
"Imagine a democracy where ordinary citizens help decide what laws need to be passed and how they should be written." Federal Computer Week - 05/22/00
This project of Georgetown University invites the public to offer suggestions of how E-government should be built.
National Parks Pass a Money Saver
For $50.00 you can buy a personalized National Parks Pass card that will cover your "per vehicle" or "per person" entrance fee at 379 national parks, wilderness areas, historic sites and monuments from Acadia to Zion. From your About Guide.
Links to even more examples of how the Internet is bring the government of the people to the people. From your About Guide.
Lots of Americans visit Canada in the summer. Canada Online Guide Susan Munroe helps you pick one.
Besides the NPS and USFS home pages, sites with guidebooks, maps, fishing info, photos, reservations, and scenic trail information. From Camping Guide David Sweet.
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