GNP: going to the sun ticket sytem thoughts?

[bobr1]

Also, I don't want this to get into an argument thread. I was just venting, partially due to frustation and also some alcohol after taking a 127 question practical. Teleworkers can do what they want, I know there is a generalization just like people that hate Californians moving to their state. It just my opinion so who cares opinions are like assholes everyone's got one (unless you have an imperforate anus).

 

[Mojave]

I work for the government as a contractor in a remote area.

I shop on a military base at the PX and commissary as I am retired and have the right to do that.

Most of the time when I shop in the city of 100,000 30 miles away or the city of 500,000 60 miles away I shop at a big box store.

Which is basically the same as anyone else I know. I don't know anyone that shops at mom and pop stores, because they are mostly gone.

We live in a highly financially depressed area, and until recently we had cheap housing. The recent influx of people who are either teleworking or retired is huge. It has caused the local housing market cost to double for newer homes. Builders are of course losing their shit and building as much as they can.

I am still not following you on the idea of contribute.

There are 7500 people that work where I work. We have the highest wages in the county, our taxes and the goods and services we buy pay for a huge percentage of the incomes of secondary support workers (shop keepers, their staff, doctors, lawyers and all that).

Much like the retiree and teleworkers that are moving to this area and changing the financial demographic.

I have lived in towns similar to this one, where the huge population of civilians that worked a test and evaluation base (with a small military population) paid for the economy of the entire town. In the case of Ridgecrest, California, the economy of the base financed the town. The town was never really anything of any size, and all the infrastructure came from the base as the base grew and the test mission grew. Housing got very expensive, and eventually there was enough housing for everyone and prices dropped. Unless you live in Jackson, Wyoming this is the your reality, it will just take time. As their own kids won't be able to afford to stay there forever as the $8.95 jobs aren't going to pay for any house.

Teleworkers are a new phenomenon, no one knows what will happen when they get tired of the rattlesnakes, grizzly bears, snow and wind. Empty nest Californians (as well as other people) have been settling the Rocky mountain states since the 1960's, they have also been moving to Arizona when they get tired of the wind and snow.

Casper, Wyoming has had a boom bust economy my entire life. A lot of oil towns do, and people that don't work in the oil field always bitched and complained about the out of state oil field workers who came town and took their jobs, and periodically made it expensive. North Dakota has the same problem right now, but 2 years ago it was 1000% worse there. Casper home prices are still expensive, Bismark home prices are dropping fast. Casper is more desirable for teleworkers and retiree's because of the taxes and slightly better weather.

Biden like Obama will make any oil boom bust, and those that work in that industry will go on to do other things.

We have family that used to ranch in the Buffalo valley east of Jackson, Wyoming. Eventually they sold out and moved to Sheridan, and bought a bigger place and they ended up doing it again. Millionares in Jackson got ran off financially by the Billionares in Jackson. These sleepy little mountain towns throughout the west are experiencing the same thing, as those with some cash are leaving bigger cities and $1,000,000 homes to build the same priced home in the mountain west.

What do we do?

Nothing, but bitch about it and try to find a way to afford to live here.

I just want to move home. I should have bought a piece of land in Wyoming 20 years ago and just paid it off so I could live off of my military retirement.

There will always be people that make a lot more money, and move to your community and encourage others to do the same thing.

 

[bsnedeker]

You originally said they don't contribute,, of course they contribute. What you are talking about is an entirely different problem. They "ruin" areas by increasing the cost.

Yes I agree.

This is going on any place desirable in the West.

Even in shitty Las Cruces, all the retired and teleworkers have doubled the housing cost in 3 years. Covid exacerbated it.

What can we do about it?

Nothing!

I originally said what now? I said no such thing. I'm simply explaining the primary issue surrounding people work remotely and flooding into western states.

For the record I'm one of the people who did this so I'm a part of the problem. The only difference is I made the move earlier than most but that is a distinction without a difference. I try my best to be engaged in the community and give back where I can but my presence here is driving up the cost of living in this area, no way around it.

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[kickemall]

Bottom line is that there is to many people in the world. I don't see that ever changing.

 

[FLAK]

I try to Zig when everybody else Zags. I go like the beach when its cooler, and fish
the river swamps or mtn. streams when its hot. I like to hunt stuff nobody else is hunting in my area. I seek out times/places that are mostly void of people. Works out pretty good.
No, I'm not a people person.

 

[JeffRaines]

I try to Zig when everybody else Zags. I go like the beach when its cooler, and fish
the river swamps or mtn. streams when its hot. I like to hunt stuff nobody else is hunting in my area. I seek out times/places that are mostly void of people. Works out pretty good.
No, I'm not a people person.

This is me 100%. I hate the beach though - I grew up in the heat and beautiful beaches were an hour away. I got my fill of it when I was younger. I prefer the mountains to beaches 100% of the time.

I even tailored my work schedule so I could be off more weekdays... if I had it my way I’d work every weekend and be off during the week.

 

[MTHunter1321]

Think it’s dumb but unfortunately it’s up to the tribe

 

[Mojave]

I have lived in 5 countries, and in 15 states (20 year military career). I am always looking turning over stones looking for a better place. Living in Australia I feel as though they have sold their grand childrens souls for the cost of cheap labor. Germany has done the same thing starting in the 1980's with the Turks, and now with Syrians, most of Europe allowed the population to explode by letting in folks from the Middle East. Malmo Sweden used to be a quiet city in Southern Sweden, it is now one of the biggest shitholes in Europe.

Australia isn't alone, we have done it, Europe has done it, and the Canadians are doing the same thing with immigration from Asia.

There are far too many people in the world, and it will only get 1000 times worse.

We went to Norway in 2018 to see if we'd like to immigrate there. The Arctic areas of Norway other than the coast are pretty much empty. Kind of like Alaska.

I don't know how Wyoming has stayed so empty, this will eventually change.

 

[sneaky]

Most rural states have had some growth as people don't want to live in big cities anymore. Covid has exacerbated the issue as anyone who could telework or could retire as done so.

This has pushed housing prices up, caused public schools in popular areas to burst with new students and lead to changes in voting demographics.

Here in New Mexico we have actually become more conservative as most of the people that fled big cities were Republicans that didn't want to live in Boston, Cleveland or Las Vegas anymore. If it wasn't for the people we take in from Mexico we would probably flip red.

Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have also had huge numbers of people leave for other states. I don't remember the exact numbers, but many rural Western States had more people move to California in 2019 than they did move from California or it was very close. Colorado, Texas, Florida and other states did not. They got 30-50% more Californians than they sent to California.

When you drive through newer Las Cruces suburbs you see license plates from all over the country in newer housing developments. My parents live in Cheyenne and my cousin's live in Casper and it is the same. But there are plates from Wyoming, Idaho and Montana here too.

People move, they have always moved. The pandemic has made things worse, and there is nothing you can do to change that.

My grandfather told me that when he immigrated from Germany in the 1930's that people complained that there were too many immigrants in Wyoming.

I spent a month in the Yukon living out of my RV in 2014. I met people from all over the world, and many of them were trying to move there or had moved there.

There are 330,000,000 Americans as much as we'd like to have the entire Gila, Grosse Ventre, Bob Marshall or any place else to ourselves those days have been over for 50 years.

You got it completely backwards on Idaho. People are flocking to Idaho, not leaving it.

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[mtwarden]

I'd say it's about 20 -ish years past due. There is no "enjoying" a drive around Going to the Sun as it stands now- it's bumper to bumper traffic and every overlook and parking area is full with no parking signs.

Decreasing the numbers of automobiles on the road in GNP is long overdue.

This isn't the first National Park to take this step, it won't be the last.

 

[roadrunner]

Montana is going down the tubes faster than anywhere in the country. In fact it is about half way down already.

New Mexico has Montana beat...

 

[MattB]

The amount you make as a teleworker matters very much, that is why you don't understand the problem.

The issue is that wages in western states are significantly lower than they are in big cities where most of these teleworkers are coming from. When these folks move here and work remotely they are not taking a pay cuts to do so. This means they can afford to spend more on housing. This drives up housing prices. This means that locals can't afford housing. This kills communities. You can look at the housing markets up here in the Flathead Valley where I live, as well as Bozeman to see this in action right now.

It is a real problem. I don't know what the solution is as it's very complicated.

I live in an area with lots of tech companies whose workers are working remotely, and most companies have elected to reduce salaries for those people to reflect the wage scale in the areas they live.

My sense is the issue may be more tied to those who are working remotely being fairly high earners to begin with in comparison to the local wage scale (e.g. if their household was making $400K/year in San Jose and only 60% of that in MT, they probably still out-earn the majority of locals).

 

[Mojave]

New Mexico has Montana beat...

We have 3 problems in New Mexico.

1. We are on the border, and that border is for all intensive purposes open.

2. The left runs the state, not as bad as California but it is pretty stark.

3. Everyone and their dog is retiring here, same problem the 3 states stacked on top of it have and the 3 states to the west of them. Texas also has this problem, especially anywhere that used to be nice.

 

[vectordawg]

If you don't like huge influxes of seasonal employees and tourists, Alaska is the last place for you. A guy can barely drive home from work without traffic being back up from a wall of RVs going 50 mph down the highway or almost getting in an accident because RVs filled with tourists are blocking half the highway because they're pulled over to look at an effing cow moose.

Sounds like glacier is headed the same way as Denali. Give it a few more years and it will be only tour buses like Denali. Our only option of driving in Denali NP is through a lottery with about a 15% chance of getting drawn. And you get assigned one day to do it within a three day window.

I was the tourist driving an RV but I'm not afraid to drive over 50, lol! We were in Denali last summer and the gate was open to mile marker 30. We actually parked the RV in that parking/rest area right there at the gate and spent the night. At the time, we didn't fully realize what a once in a lifetime opportunity that was!

 

[Silveroddo]

Just got a vehicle pass for the week of July 4th ( I know, dumb time to go, but it’s how it worked out) and 1100 tickets looked to have sold out in 10 minutes.

 

[mtwarden]

It’ll be multiple times better than previous years on 4th of July I can guarantee that

 

[libertysdad]

Holy crap I had no idea this was going on that sucks big time. What about motorcycles?

 

[Silveroddo]

There’s a separate motorcycle pass vs vehicle. Not sure if there is a separate allocation or if it’s all one pool. It’s a rolling 60 day window, so if you want a 7 day pass starting July 6-7, you need to log in tomorrow. They open up at 8am Mountain time. I logged in at 8:05 and there were 200 odd tickets left