The U.S. Forest Service today is taking a step toward liberalizing motorized travel on nearly 380,000 miles of mostly gravel and two-track roads and trails on national forest land.
The agency announced its intent to amend the existing Travel Management Rule to encourage more local decision-making in blueprints that govern the types of motorized vehicles allowed on public land and the details of where and when they can go. Specifically, the rule amendment is expected to liberalize the use of e-bikes across much of the Forest Service’s inventoried road and trail system.
Friday’s announcement follows the controversial decision, released Tuesday, that would rescind the so-called Roadless Rule and authorize road-building and commercial timber harvest in Forest Service backcountry units that have been largely off-limits to motorized access for a generation.
In a news release, the Forest Service said it will publish a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for amending the agency’s existing Travel Management Rule, codified as 36 CFR 212. Once the intent is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 30 days to submit comments on the change.
While details of the proposed amendments are thin, comments from senior Forest Service officials indicate that more travel-management decisions will be made at the individual forest level and would generally increase access for motorized vehicles, to include e-bikes.
“The existing travel management scheme creates unnecessary barriers for Americans to enjoy the national forests and grasslands they own,” said USDA Natural Resources and Environment Under Secretary Michael Boren in a statement. “By simplifying regulations and aligning them with the mission of the United States Forest Service, we are providing the necessary tools for local leaders to ensure that roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes are open and appropriate for public use.”
It’s unclear how local transportation-management decisions would be made, or which “unnecessary barriers” might be lowered by the proposed plan revision. The Americans With Disabilities Act already provides the ability for wheelchairs and other adaptive devices to be used on any route open to foot traffic.
Last year, Utah Republican senators Mike Lee and John Curtis introduced the Outdoor Americans with Disabilities Act, which would require the Department of Interior and Forest Service to designate thousands of miles of roads on public land open to motorized travel. The bill, which has been stuck in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for a year, would require agencies to classify “disability-accessible land” and develop at least 2.5 miles of roads per square mile of public land under the classification.
Motorized- and wheeled-vehicle use are limited to non-wilderness areas, but the Forest Service’s revisions could affect 380,000 miles of roads in the agency’s inventory.
Contentious Travel Rules
Travel-management rules are often the most fractious parts of individual National Forest management plans, with user groups fighting over every mile and seasonal use of inventoried roads and trails on public land. Forest-specific travel-management rules are often litigated for years following agency decisions.
Revisions to the decades-old federal rules that govern USFS travel management have been mulled for years, with increasing frequency on the influential Smokey Wire, a blog that covers Forest Service policy.
Friday’s Forest Service announcement generally supports President Trump’s executive order from May that calls for “eliminating unnecessary regulations” on the use of off-road vehicles on public lands. That order, the Removing Unnecessary and Counterproductive Restrictions on Access to Federal Lands, calls for agencies to “facilitate the replacement of current regulations with a system for off-road vehicle use designation that provides more access, recreational opportunities, and greater multiple use benefits to the public. It would also restore balanced land management by eliminating ill-defined and arbitrary environmental and social standards.”
Combined with Tuesday’s announcement that the Forest Service plans to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, the travel-management change would “upend national forest management and create chaos, uncertainty, and danger for all forest users,” says the environmental group Wild Montana in a statement.
“The Travel Management Rule is why dirt-bikers and snowmobilers can share national forest lands with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict,” says Hilary Eisen, Wild Montana’s federal policy director. “It’s why our national forests provide habitat to support thriving wildlife populations. It is built on local decision-making, with a designation process that ensures that no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected.”
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Many details are likely to be outlined in the upcoming EIS, including a mechanism for travel-plan revision. In its announcement Friday, the U.S. Forest Service noted that existing designations and maps created under the current Travel Management Rule “will remain valid and in place until updated at the local level.”
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