Impacts Analysis

With the implementation of a new parking lot design and the increase in ability to access the National Park, there are many areas that will be impacted socially, economically, and environmentally. Without knowing these impacts the new design creates, the engineering team would not be keeping up the engineering ethics that professionals are held to, so being transparent with the impacts that come from the design that will be implemented is a must.

Socially, the park is going to receive an increase of foot and vehicle traffic coming to the site to access the National Park. With the increase of visitors, the increase of human waste, including inorganic waste such as litter. The increase traffic is going to wear Loma Alta traveling up to the site to degrade quicker than in years past. There will have to be more road maintenance and even in the future a paved road all the way to the parking lot to reduce the amount of maintenance required. With the increase in visitors, noise could be an issue since there are residence upon Loma Alta, which may have a flood of complaints that the traffic through there is too noisy on peak days. Not all the impacts are negative, with the new parking lot many more people are able to access and experience what the National Park has to offer. This will increase moral for the area of Tucson and allow others to learn the heritage of the southwest. With Loma Alta being dirt up to the parking lot, the need for more construction could be need sparking development of a new road which makes the experience of coming to the trailhead even smoother. Lastly, living in the post pandemic world, the parking lot design and facilitates an opportunity for friends and families to get outside and enjoy the day together.

Environmentally, with the number of visitors and the chance of litter and other forms of waste there will need to be trash cans placed on site and regularly maintained to make sure none of the litter and trash gets into the surrounding area causing danger to the surrounding plants and wildlife. With the runoff being impacted by the design increasing described and analyzed in the hydraulic analysis section of the report, with the monsoon rainfall that southern Arizona receives year to year drainage could become an issue. Not within the immediate years following the construction of the new site, but years later after the site has received numerous years of monsoon rain, the drainage into the channel that runs to the west could be negatively impacted. Maintenance is a must in this area since the people downstream as well as the wildlife could be endangered if the parking lot drains quicker than the team designed and creates a flash flood event. With the rainfall causing drainage issues, there is also an issue with the surface life cycle and that being washed away downstream. Depending on the surface chosen by the client, there will need to be patches, crack repairs, and even total replacements. With gravel alone every two to three years more needs to be added since the traffic coming in will wear the material out. Concrete will be the least maintained, but once the material starts to erode, there needs to be steps in keeping that material from being drained into the surrounding area as well as the asphalt. With the increase of visitors by motor vehicle the pollution from the area will increase which needs to be mitigated to not do any harm to local health in the area.

Economically, the increase in visitor numbers to the National Park will increase revenue to the park as well the surrounding area of Tucson. With more visitors being able to use the trailhead there will be more talk of the facility. With there being more people out at the parking lot, there will be more people stopping in Tucson for food, lodging, supplies, etc. The new lot increases the revenue of every business around the area since more people will be requiring services. With the increase of visitors, there is a chance that the National Park gets more funding from the federal government as well to create and pay for more jobs increasing employment opportunities in the area. With the increase revenue the idea to expand development could be a possibility, creating new hotels, restaurants, stores, etc.

With the new parking lot design there are some negative impacts that come with any new development, but the reward of new jobs, more money to the local community and increasing pride of the publics land, isn’t much of a risk. There are more positive impacts regarding the new parking lot at the Loma Alta trailhead than negatives.