If we assume that the 14,000 daily visitors come by automobile (rather than by helicopter or
bus or other known or unknown means) and that each visiting automobile carries four
passengers (an assumption, I am sure that is far too optimistic), those 14,000 visitors will
move in 3,500 vehicles. If we confine their movement (as I think we properly may for this
mountain area) to 12 hours out of the daily 24, the 3,500 automobiles will pass any given
point on the two-lane road at the rate of about 300 per hour. This amounts to five vehicles per
minute, or an average of one every 12 seconds. This frequency is further increased to one
every six seconds when the necessary return traffic along that same two-lane road is
considered. And this does not include service vehicles and employees’ cars. Is this the way
we perpetuate the wilderness and its beauty, solitude, and quiet?
- The second relates to the fairly obvious fact that any resident of the Mineral King area- the
real “user” – is an unlikely adversary for this Disney-governmental project. He naturally will
be inclined to regard the situation as one that should benefit him economically.
