The north Oregon coast has been busier than ever this summer. Between highway traffic jams, illegal parking and overflowing trash bins, crowds have been overwhelming the state park sites visitors are there to see.
In an effort to curb the bad behavior, officials with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, Oregon Department of Transportation and other local agencies on the Oregon coast are teaming up to tackle the issues, the parks department announced Friday.
Chief among their efforts will be increased enforcement of illegal parking, the agencies said, including ticketing “unsafely parked cars” and towing vehicles when needed.
READ MORE: Cars towed, drivers warned about illegal parking at Oregon recreation areas
New “no parking” signs will go up at parks, while advisory signs will be posted along U.S. 101 telling travelers to keep driving when lots are full. Some parking lots may be re-lined to more clearly show where people are and are not allowed to park, officials said.
Drivers may receive tickets of $115 to $250 for illegal parking, the parks department said, and would need to pay for the cost of towing. Cars are usually towed to the nearest town with tow service.
“Many of these issues are normal for the north coast; they’re just more intense this year,” state parks spokesman Chris Havel said. “We still need to serve as many people as we can, we just need a little help from visitors to do it well.”
A public restroom near Short Sand Beach at Oswald West State Park had to close briefly after summer crowds overwhelmed the park's water system.Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Havel said the decision to take action stemmed from several bad behaviors by park visitors, including parking on the edges of parking lots and on the shoulders of the highway, leaving behind piles of trash and dumping garbage inside portable toilets.
The parks department had to cut back the frequency of its trash pickup following a severe budget shortfall and layoffs in June. Park officials have been asking visitors to pack out their trash instead of relying on trash bins at state parks, though it appears that message has fallen on deaf ears.
In response, some parks on the north coast will now see increased trash and restroom service where money and staffing are available, the department said Friday.
Aside from parking legally and packing out trash, park officials are also asking people to consider visiting mid-week and early in the day, and to use restrooms before arriving or after leaving the park.
No official crowd numbers have been released from this summer, although park officials have been sounding the alarm for months, as anecdotal reports pour in from rangers and visitors on the north coast that weekends have consistently reached “holiday level” crowds.
People flock to Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast as the town reopens amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 28, 2020, a particularly warm spring day. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
Problems haven’t become bad enough for park officials to consider closing some park sites to the public, as they did in March when the entire parks system closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. That option remains on the table, but the department would prefer not to take it, Havel said, since a closure would simply move congestion to another park nearby, and enforcement would be a burden on the already short-staffed department.
“As has been true since March, we’re usually left with the ‘least bad’ option when it comes to managing a huge crowd of people,” Havel said.
And while park rangers spent the first part of the summer focused on educating visitors about using parks responsibly, the department is now shifting to some tough love for those who didn’t get the message.
“If you love the coast, show it,” state parks director Lisa Sumption said in a news release Friday. “Take care of it and yourselves with some very simple steps.”
--Jamie Hale; jhale@oregonian.com; 503-294-4077; @HaleJamesB
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