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future generations. The statement by Secretary Udall also brings in 
the idea of expanding the park system presumably for the purpose of 
conserving these new areas and to add to the future enjoyment of the 
society. 
If ieee fees were the only available policy instrument these objectives 
would seem to require fairly significant charges for at least two reasons: 
(1) To serve as a rationing device to prevent overuse of the park 
system and subsequent deterioration. 
(2) To yield a source of revenue for— 
(a) Investment in the present park system to improve and 
maintain the quality of the parks; and 
(6) Financing the addition of new areas to the park system. 
Pricing policies are not the only available instruments, of course, 
and they are not the only possible source of revenues, and indeed for 
some conceivable objective functions pricing policies may not be very 
effective. But in this instance, with these stated objectives, and the 
facts that revenues from user fees represent such a small fraction of 
total expenditures,* little attempt is made to regulate usage with the 
amount charged, and to ease the peaks in demand. It would seem that 
user prices and revenues are far below what they should be and incon- 
sistent with the stated objectives of the National Park Service. 
There are a number of other possible objectives than the official ones 
of the National Park Service. It is interesting to look at some of these 
and see what pricing policies they imply. In doing this, it may be 
convenient to reference figure 1 which attempts to portray graphically 
the total usage (or perhaps enjoyment) that may be expected over all 
time versus different levels of user charges, for say one park. This is 
admittedly extremely simple and restrictive but it brings out some 
qualitative effects. 
(1) Conserve the natural state of the park. In this case very few 
people if any would be allowed into the park. This would be the case 
where extremely high user fees are levied. 
(2) Maximize the usage of the park in the present. This is the 
opposite extreme to the previous alternative and is the case where so 
much use is made of the park in the present, that deterioration becomes 
so great the park is less attractive to people in the future. This policy 
would imply a zero or very low fixed fee charge. 
(3) Maximize the usage of the park over time. In figure 1, this point 
is represented by Q,,. There are several aspects that should be noted 
about this case. First of all, there is no guarantee, unless cost functions 
can be specified, that the amount of revenue generated at this point 
will be sufficient to cover costs. Therefore, this case may represent 
some form of subsidy operation, as indeed may alternative 1 and as 
will alternative 2. 
Furthermore, if the goal was to maximize usage of the entire system 
and not just this one park, the decision would be even more complex. 
For in this instance, a trade-off must be made between visits to this 
park and profit generated that can be invested in additions to the 
park system, which in turn, would bring in more people. 
