Interesting bits from the National Park Service

Capital Bikeshare on the Mall by Mr. T in DC, on Flickr

The Washington Post reports today, "Capital Bikeshare coming to Mall," that the National Park Service, after being resistant (see the July issue, page 23 from the regional biking magazine Spokes, will be allowing DC bicycle sharing stations on the National Mall and eventually in other park installations.

And a couple days ago the Washington City Paper Housing Complex blog reported that the Tourmobile "exclusive" franchise for "transit" and interpretative services on National Park property will be ending. See "Tourmobile, Au Revoir, For Reals: Service Ending October 31."

I do think that the GGW entry "Tourmobile dies, but exclusivity was the real villain" makes a good point that there is greater room for nuance in how NPS has interpreted their contracts in the past, that a Tourmobile type service could have co-existed with more typical transit services, had both the operator and NPS been more flexible. (Issues of whether or not the operator's service remained competitive in the face of new operators is another question entirely.)

Still, it's heartening to see these forward thinking changes on the part of NPS, which raises hopes that the forthcoming NPS transportation plan for the region's NPS installations will be more transformational in its approach.