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• Howland Hill Road presentation

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Redwood National and State Parks officials are determining whether to move forward with a pilot project that will change the flow of traffic on Howland Hill Road this summer.

The goal is to reduce the number of collisions on the scenic route that leads into Stout Grove, the Grove of Titans and the Boy Scout Tree Trail in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

But residents living at the park’s eastern gateway aren’t sure the plan will work.

“With all the improvements, they didn’t do their due diligence, if that would be the word, to figure out about the incoming environmental impact or traffic impact or anything for our neighborhood,” said Mary Hull, who has lived on Douglas Park Road at the eastern end of Howland Hill Road with her husband Gary for about 32 years. “Consequently, four years later, here we are inundated with 1.5 million cars coming through here a year now.”

After hearing “mixed opinions” at a meeting of Douglas Park Road and Hiouchi residents Wednesday, parks officials will now figure out if any traffic pattern change this summer is feasible, Redwood National and State Parks Deputy Superintendent Erin Gates told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Thursday.

The original proposal started with one-way traffic at the Howland Hill Outdoor School gate in the west and extended it to the Stout Grove access trail. There would still be two-way traffic east of Stout Grove and vehicles accessing the area from U.S. 199 would be able turn around in the Stout Grove parking lot, Gates said.

“We were trying to assume the turnaround area to avoid any impact on the Douglas Park neighborhood,” she said. “If people were coming from U.S. 199 and were trying to access Howland Hill Road and they realized, ‘OK, the road from this point on is one-way,’ if we made that point at the end of our park boundary, then that would cause all of the traffic coming from 199 to be turning around in Douglas Park.”

According to the proposed pilot project, emergency vehicles with lights and sirens would be able to drive both directions on Howland Hill Road. Two-way traffic would also return to Howland Hill Road in the case of a major fire or if evacuations were needed.

On Thursday, Gates said she and other parks staff will also discuss the feasibility of a traffic flow change this summer with Del Norte County officials.

“I think the community thought the permanent plan had already been established,” she said. “We haven’t had our debrief yet, but it could be that we look at this feedback and we’re like, ‘Alright, we’re not ready to implement a whole one-way plan this summer because we don’t have the ability to address all of the different pieces of feedback we got.’”

The pilot project would have lasted from June 15 through Labor Day. In addition to gathering input from Douglas Park and Hiouchi residents, RNSP officials will hold another meeting for Del Norte County residents if they determine the proposal is viable, Gates said.

"If we were making a permanent management decision, there would be a lot of additional information we would be gathering," she said.

Howland Hill Road is the old stagecoach road into Crescent City from the east. According to Gates, it’s eligible for registry as a National Historic Landmark. Because of that reason, Redwood National and State Parks is unwilling to change the road’s character because it “provides an opportunity you really can’t get anywhere else,” Gates said.

But park visitation has steadily increased over the past decade. Last year, roughly 450,000 people visited with more than 100,000 traversing Howland Hill Road, according to the proposal parks officials circulated in Hiouchi on Wednesday.

More than 600 cars a day drive over Howland Hill during the summer, Gates told the Outpost.

In 2022, RNSP law enforcement took eight vehicle collision reports connected with Howland Hill Road. More reports were made to staff regarding collisions and vehicles off the roadway where people had “self-rescued” before law enforcement responded, according to RNSP’s proposal.

The overall increase in park visitation prompted officials last year to require visitors get a permit to access Fern Canyon. But it’s a step they’re unwilling to take for Howland Hill Road if they don’t have to, Gates said.

“If we implemented a permit system, that would require us to install (more) features on Howland Hill Road,” she said. “We would need kiosks in both the west and east ends, we would have to staff those kiosks for the duration the permit system was in place and we would have to provide infrastructure to support something like that.”

According to District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard, Wednesday’s evening was also the first time Del Norte County staff heard about RNSP’s proposed traffic flow change for Howland Hill Road. In addition to Hiouchi and Douglas Park residents, county engineer Jon Olson, County Administrative Officer Neal Lopez and Assistant County Administrative Officer Randy Hooper attended the meeting, Howard said.

Though a plan isn’t decided on, Howard said the community’s input also informs the county’s actions outside park boundaries. Those actions could include installing traffic signs, speed bumps or digital radar detectors telling people how fast they’re going, he said. The Board of Supervisors will have to be involved in those decisions, however, Howard said.

“If parks really wants to move forward with the proposed pilot (project) integrating the input they’ve heard from the community, it will clearly impact how we manage Douglas Park Road,” he said. “We need to assure the community that whatever they decide, we could implement both on the state parks side and on the county side.”

Though she spoke with the Outpost before Wednesday’s meeting, Hull said she wouldn’t be opposed to a permitting system for access to Howland Hill Road. She pointed out that in addition to using permits to manage access to Fern Canyon, that’s also a system for the Tall Trees Grove south of Prairie Creek.

“Everybody, I feel like, would enjoy the experience much better,” she said. “We would be happier and safer on our end and people wouldn’t be so mad trying to find a place to park or pulling over waiting for 10 cars to go by.”

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