Vehicle-Free Wednesdays at Cades Cove Delayed Until June By the Park Service
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has delayed the popular vehicle-free Wednesdays at Cades Cove until June. While the park had previously allowed walkers and bikers to access the beautiful, historic, 11-mile trek on Wednesdays and Saturdays until 10 in the morning starting in early May, the National Park Service, in 2020, reserved the entirety of Wednesday for no motor vehicles to tour Cades Cove. This was effective throughout the summer months, but this year’s vehicle-free Wednesday schedule has been shortened by at least a month.
Background: Cades Cove, a 2,000-acre valley surrounded by scenic mountains, provides one of the most popular destinations in the park with over 2 million visitors a year. Visitors enjoy the area along an 11-mile, one-way loop road that passes through a historic landscape dotted by cabins, churches, and a gristmill. Visitors are drawn to Cades Cove to view wildlife, access hiking and equestrian trails, take photographs, attend ranger programs, and ride bicycles.
(Note: The above paragraph is from an archived description of Cades Cove from the NPS website.)
Before we get into the current reasoning (if any) for this announcement, let’s get into the research and data the park gathered to allow for a whole day of motor vehicle silence in the Cove.
The park went through a public planning process where feedback from over 2,000 visitors from 37 states was gathered in March 2020. (It should be noted that the global COVID-19 pandemic was underway, further complicating matters.) There was convincing support for a full day for bikers and walkers, as a result of this survey.
In 2021, the support for this initiative only increased after the first year. Visitor feedback was at 84% positive for the program, with an additional 42% saying they would like more vehicle-free access opportunities.
According to park data, an average of almost 1,300 people took advantage of Wednesdays free of motor vehicles. The number of walkers was at 44%, while bikers were in the majority at 56%. Officials stated that parking was available 82% of the time, with the majority of parking filled in the morning hours.
The use of vehicle-free days since the park started collecting data in 1995 has only increased—as you might have imagined. When the park went to reserving Wednesdays and Saturdays mornings until 10 for walkers and bikers, there were several challenges that made it more difficult for the park and its visitors.
First was the gridlocked traffic that formed prior to the 10 a.m. hour when vehicles could enter. This made it a problem for parking, campground access, and other features of the Cades Cove area. You have traffic coming in and traffic coming out from the people who hiked and biked the 11-mile road.
By spreading use of the Cove throughout the entire day, it caused much less problems with access. And by opening it up on Saturday for all-day vehicle access, it helped people who visited on the weekends to tour this historic area. Traditionally, weekends have always been the busiest days, so that helped alleviate the congestion which was even more difficult to navigate on Saturdays.
As of this writing, no official date has been set, but the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has announced that it will open vehicle-free Wednesdays sometime in June. No real reason has been stated why, and that’s left people wondering, but I won’t get into it. This is a concern for businesses in the area of Townsend who rely on the locals and out-of-towners who use the Cove on Wednesday. Hopefully, the delay won’t end up derailing these businesses.
Cades Cove Vehicle-Free Days link
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