Zion National Park’s shuttle fleet has become one of the first bus fleets in the US to go all electric, and the first at a National Park. Zion National Park in Southern Utah is renowned for its colorful canyons and arches, and is one of the “mighty five” national parks in the region showing off Utah’s natural beauty. The park, which is largely situated around a narrow canyon, started getting more and more visitors in the 1990s, leading to traffic issues.
This led the park to close off most park roads to private traffic, and institute a to bring visitors through the canyon and back and forth from the town of Springdale just outside the park. Those buses went into service in 2000, and helped to revitalize the park by reducing noise and pollution from traffic, which are always a scourge in beautiful natural areas. “The remarks we got from visitors in the very first summer were fantastic.
They said, ‘You have given us back the canyon.’ They said, ‘We can hear the birds sing and the air is fresh.’ No longer were the traffic jams fouling the air, impacting the soundscape, and diminishing the visitor experience.
” Jeff Bradybaugh, Zion National Park Superintendent However, those buses ran on propane, so they were still noisy and contribute to the degradation of natural environments due to their use of fossil fuels. Now, Zion has upgraded its entire fleet to all-electric buses, rather than the previous propane buses, becoming the first fleet at any National Park to.