A biker exits the parking lot past the visitor center at Saguaro National Park East.

 Kelly Presnell / Arizona Daily Star

Officials at Saguaro National Park have unveiled plans for the first major upgrade to the east entrance in almost 70 years.

The National Park Service wants to reroute the road and dramatically expand the parking lot at the Rincon Mountain Visitor Center, which dates to 1953 and contains just 40 spaces.

The plans announced Nov. 1 call for improved access to the park off of Old Spanish Trail and substantial changes to the area around the visitor center to separate the entrance road and fee stations from the parking lot.

The Park Service will accept public comments on the proposal until Dec. 2.

“There is not a construction start date associated with the project at this point,” said Andy Fisher, the park’s chief of interpretation. “We are trying to get ourselves ready with a plan if or when construction funding becomes available.”

Increased traffic in and around the park has led to congestion and growing safety concerns. According to planning documents for the proposed upgrades, “near pedestrian-vehicular accidents happen frequently” along the current entrance road, which runs through the middle of the visitor center’s only parking lot.

Site plan for expansion of the parking and traffic movement at Saguaro National Park East unit entrance and Visitor Center.

The plans would more than double the current number of parking spots and add spots large enough for buses and recreational vehicles. There would also be new restrooms, a larger bicycle-friendly shade structure, and a designated spot for people to pose for photos next to the entrance sign.

The entrance off of Old Spanish Trail would be straightened and expanded to make it safer for vehicles coming and going from the park, while the fee station would be relocated to reduce congestion and increase pedestrian safety.

Saguaro National Park set an attendance record last year, with more than 1 million visitors.

In 1954, the year after the current parking lot was built, fewer than 78,000 people visited what was then a national monument limited only to the Rincon Mountains.

Vehicles drive past the fee station at Saguaro National Park with the Rincon Mountains in the background.

President John F. Kennedy expanded the monument to include portions of the Tucson Mountains in 1961, and Congress elevated the land to national park status in 1994.

The park service is seeking public input on the upgrades in part because the work will impact structures around the visitor center that are now considered historic.

Park officials plan to limit such impacts as much as possible and reuse construction materials from any historic features that need to be demolished. Interpretive signs will be put up to show what the entrance area used to look like.

The project will also put officials in the potentially awkward position of having to uproot some of the park’s namesake cactuses.

Saguaro National Park has been studying the health of its namesake cactus for more than 75 years. Video courtesy of the National Park Service.

The plans call for any saguaros and other cactuses to be transplanted from the construction zone, though Fisher said they don’t yet know how many plants might need to be moved.

“Being this early in the process, we can’t really speak to specific relocation plans for individual saguaros,” she said, “but it is one of the things we are thinking about as we are developing the concept.”

More information on the proposed work is available online at: parkplanning.nps.gov/SaguaroRMDParkingLot.

Comments can be submitted at the same web address until Dec. 2.

The park service is seeking general input on the project, as well as any relevant information, stories and experiences the public has to share about the east entrance to Saguaro, particularly prior to 1972.

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Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@tucson.com or 573-4283. On Twitter: @RefriedBrean