Deschutes County could ban parking on two roads near Smith Rock State Park and have a shuttle to transport visitors who park off-site in Terrebonne as early as next spring, as the park works to manage growing crowds.

Smith Rock State Park Manager Scott Brown talked to the Deschutes County Commission on Wednesday about ongoing work to plan how the park will be managed and developed during the next few decades. The biggest challenge the park faces is ever-increasing popularity: The number of day-use and camping visitors more than doubled during the past five years, Brown said.

“That’s a lot of stress on resources, plus a degraded experience for visitors,” he said.

On most weekends in the spring and fall and during particularly nice days in the summer and winter, parking spots in the park fill up quickly and parked cars begin lining Wilcox Avenue and 17th Street, Brown said. Parking is already banned on Crooked River Drive, the road into the park, but there are no restrictions on Wilcox, which runs perpendicular, or 17th Street, which intersects Wilcox Avenue south of the park.

On some high-use weekends, the park received reports of more than 200 vehicles parked on the two streets. Brown and Deschutes County Road Department Director Chris Doty showed pictures of Wilcox lined with parked vehicles while cars, trucks, farm equipment and people walking to the park use the other two lanes.

“We heard a lot of complaints from neighbors on livability on these peak weekends,” Doty said.

Smith Rock State Park wants to ban parking on a 1-mile stretch of Wilcox Avenue and a half-mile stretch of 17th Street. Doing so would require approval from the Deschutes County Commission, which would likely cede enforcement of that ban to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. In conjunction with a parking ban, Smith Rock State Park has been in touch with Cascades East Transit about providing shuttle service from an off-site parking area to the park entrance. The shuttle would resemble the Mt. Bachelor and Ride the River shuttles in Bend, and it could start running in the spring.

“It would be unlikely for that shuttle to work without a parking restriction steering people to that other destination,” Doty said.

The shuttle could pick up at Terrebonne Community School, Brown said, but he’s also talking to two private landowners nearby about using their land as a shuttle site.

Cascades East Transit still hasn’t determined a fee for the shuttle. The park entrance fee is $5 per car.

“This looks like it’s going to happen in some form or another,” Brown said.

Since 2016, Smith Rock State Park has also required off-site parking for major events and added an additional 100 overflow spots in a grass field in the park.

—  Reporter: 541-633-2160; jshumway@bendbulletin.com