California senators blame Yosemite traffic chaos on revamped entry system

America’s crown jewel of national parks has lost its sparkle.

California democratic senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff fired off a scathing letter to the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service this week, warning that the decision to scrap Yosemite National Park‘s reservation system has created pure chaos.

The letter comes after the agency eliminated timed-entry reservations for 2026, turning the majestic park into a chaotic zoo of gridlocked traffic, fumes and lawlessness — particularly during the busier summer months.

The move followed a directive from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in April 2025 ordering all national parks to “remain open and accessible.”

“In peak summer months, visitors are greeted not by the magnificent views of El Capitan, but with miles of gridlocked traffic, honking horns, and the oppressive smell of vehicle exhaust fumes,” reads the letter.

The lawmakers argue that Yosemite’s reservation system, which was used during the summers of 2020 through 2022 and again in 2024, successfully spread out crowds while still allowing more than 4.1 million people to visit in 2024, making it the park’s fifth-busiest year on record.

But the National Park Service dropped the program earlier this year “without providing any scientific justification or evidence of public stakeholder engagement.” Padilla and Schiff say reality has told a different story.

March visitation surged 45% compared to the month last year, according to the senators. They also cited “bumper-to-bumper traffic around the valley floor, hiking trails backed up with people, and parking lots full in the early mornings causing visitors to illegally park off-road on vegetation and in meadows.”

The lawmakers argue the problem has been compounded by staffing reductions across the National Park Service, claiming critical park safety employees have been pulled away from their actual jobs — like managing wildfire risks — just to direct traffic and manage overcrowding.

They hit federal park leadership with a list of hard-hitting questions, demanding the release of data and “comprehensive evaluations” park officials claimed to use when making the rule change. They also want a commitment to bring back the booking system if the rest of the 2026 busy summer season proves too disastrous.

“Many first-time visitors to Yosemite have to spend hours looking for a parking spot instead of enjoying the surrounding natural resources,” they wrote in the July 1 letter. “How is the Park’s leadership planning to mitigate this?”

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