State of the State Parks

Michigan parks navigate COVID-era traffic boom, years of deferred maintenance, and a windfall of stimulus funding

By Craig Manning | April 9, 2022

Thirty percent: That’s how much the traffic at Michigan’s state parks increased from 2019 to 2020. So says Ron Olson, the parks chief for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR). It wasn’t a fluke, either: Olson tells Northern Express that parks attendance in 2021 held steady with where it was the year before, and that the DNR is expecting numbers to remain more or less the same for 2022.

What’s happening here? The first takeaway is the obvious one: The pandemic spurred a historic spike in the usage of parks everywhere. When people couldn’t spend their leisure time eating in restaurants, going to the movies, or gathering indoors with friends and family, they headed outside.

Perhaps the more surprising takeaway, though, is that the popularity of parks hasn’t diminished at all since 2020, even as some hallmarks of “normal” pre-pandemic life have come back into play.

“We think a lot of people have found the outdoors [during the pandemic] and are still enjoying it,” Olson says. “Every indication is that things are going to remain at least near equal to what they were like last year and the year before. Our camping reservations, for instance, are up. You can book up to six months out, and our reservations [for the upcoming coming season] have been running 6-8 percent above where we were this time last year. So, every indication we have is that we should have equally as strong attendance and visitation as we did last year and the COVID year.”

35 Million Strong
Certainly, 2020 was a historic year for Michigan parks. The DNR estimated 35 million visitors to its state parks that year.

It wasn’t just the state parks that were drawing record crowds, either. Northern Michigan’s beloved Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a national park, drew 1,718,696 visitors in 2020—up from a previous peak of 1,683,553 visitors during 2016.

In 2021, we saw more records fall. Not only did the DNR estimate a second consecutive year of 35 million visitors, but the department also tracked 1.4 million camping and lodging nights—an all-time high.

With reservations up again this year, Olson says campground spots throughout the state are going fast—especially for popular summer holidays like the Fourth of July and Labor Day—and advises those planning summer camping adventures to book soon.

More People, More Problems
The bad news is that, with more people spending more time outdoors—and with demand spiking significantly for the amenities and experiences that state parks provide—our parks have been experiencing significant strain. Early in the pandemic, amidst initial spikes in visitors, officials at the Sleeping Bear Dunes reported excessive littering, vandalism of park restrooms, and theft of toilet paper and hand sanitizer from restrooms.

Many state parks, meanwhile, are plagued with outdated restrooms, crumbling roads, and other instances of deferred maintenance. The state cut the DNR’s funding significantly during an economic downturn in the early 2000s, which caused the department’s capital spending to plummet from $16 million during the 2003-2004 fiscal year to under $1.5 million in 2006-2007—a 90 percent decrease. Virtually all the money the DNR received from the state in those years went toward keeping parks operational, with little left over for improvements or maintenance.

Some capital improvements have happened at state parks in recent years, even here in northern Michigan. Between 2019 and 2020, for instance, the DNR spent $3.1 million on upgrades at the Keith J. Charters Traverse City State Park, including significant electrical overhauls, a total replacement of one of the park’s bathroom facilities, and accessibility improvements to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Park Priorities
Other parks throughout the state, though, are still waiting for makeovers that are long past due.

According to Olson, the top priorities for the DNR at the moment include Algonac State Park in St. Clair County; Cheboygan State Park on the shores of Lake Huron; Fort Wilkins State Park in the Keweenaw Peninsula; Hoffmaster State Park near Grand Haven; and Straits State Park in St. Ignace. Algonac alone, he says, needs $2.5 million for rebuilding the restroom and shower building, resurfacing and reconstructing roads, updating the electrical and sanitation systems, and building a new registration office.

More localized to northern Michigan, Olson says Cheboygan State Park needs $1.6 million to replace both its electrical system and its water/sewer system, while Straits State Park needs $1.8 million to replace a pair of bathroom/shower buildings.

Collectively, Olson’s “priority” projects account for at least $11 million in estimated spending. They’re also just the tip of the iceberg for what Michigan’s state parks need.

“We have a list of projects that we have accumulated over the years, and we’ve documented about $262 million worth of projects,” Olson says. “That number changes periodically, because it varies year to year. Algonac, Cheboygan, those are a few examples, but many of the parks have very similar kinds of things that would be done.”

A Welcome Windfall
The good news for Michigan’s state parks? Relief is coming soon.

In June 2021, Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced a proposal to allocate $250 million of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars to state parks. Around the same time, several state legislators proposed bills that also would have sent hundreds of millions of dollars of federal COVID funds to parks throughout the state.

Those proposals fed into the Building Michigan Together Plan, a $4.8-billion bipartisan spending plan that Governor Whitmer signed at the end of March. Alongside allocations for drinking water improvements, road and bridge programs, high-speed internet development, and more, the plan includes $250 million for state parks and another $200 million for local parks systems.

Some of that money is already spoken for. $30 million of the state park dollars will be used to establish a state park at the former site of the Chevrolet plant on the Flint River; it will be the first-ever state park in Genesee County. As for the local parks money, some of those dollars have already been flagged for “transformative greenway projects in Detroit and Grand Rapids.”

Most of the money, though, will be “carved out to rehabilitate and modernize the Michigan state park system,” according to Olson. The DNR is now in the process of finalizing its spending priorities list, with an anticipated 2- to 3-month lead time before the ARPA funding is available for spending. At that point, Olson says the department will hit the ground running with improvements.

“We have shovel-ready, pre-designed projects that just have to be put out for bid,” Olson says. “So I anticipate it won’t take us too long [to get some projects started], in part because time is working against us here to get things moving. This funding will be put toward things that we can get teed up by the end of 2024, because we have to have the money obligated by the end of 2024 or spent by the end of 2026.”

When asked whether northern Michigan state parks will be getting any of that ARPA money, Olson isn’t willing to say just yet.

“We are keeping that information centralized for now, because we haven’t finalized the projects list yet,” he says. “But we know that there are a lot of things that need to get done, and that each park has projects.”