Closed Roads: Open for Business?

Here in the U.S., and pretty broadly throughout the western world, people have become accustomed to the concept that “no means no.”  While this slogan was created by activists working to end violence against women, and especially date rape, the meaning can and should apply to other things as well.  

No should mean no, in whatever context it is used, including public land management. Unfortunately right now, it seems that on national forests, that might not be the case.  In the past few years, the Forest Service has started a new trend to promote motorized recreational use on gated roads.  I don’t know about you, but when I see a locked gate across a road, I assume that means I shouldn’t drive on that road.  I assume that the gate means the road is closed.  I also think that most people who see locked gates across roads assume the same.  I’ve been trained to understand that no always means no, and that locked gates mean that things are closed.

When Closed Means Open
With their new approach to off-road vehicle use, the Forest Service is reversing this basic concept, and reversing any gains they might have been making in enforcing limits on off-road vehicle recreation.  Forest Service staff have been actively promoting the use of “maintenance level 1” (ML1) roads for motorized recreation.  The problem is that ML1 roads are, by definition, closed.

According to the Forest Service Handbook, maintenance level one is “assigned to intermittent service roads during the time they are closed to vehicular traffic. The closure period must exceed 1 year. . . . Appropriate traffic management strategies are “prohibit” and “eliminate.” Roads receiving level 1 maintenance may be of any type, class or construction standard, and may be managed at any other maintenance level during the time they are open for traffic. However, while being maintained at level 1, they are closed to vehicular traffic, but may be open and suitable for non-motorized uses.”  FSH 7709.58, 12.3

The last time I checked, off-road vehicles were “vehicular traffic.”  But this is where the Forest Service seems to forget that no means no.  Because definitions in the Forest Service Handbook are not necessarily enforceable in a court of law, the Forest Service has decided that they can flout this definition by not just allowing, but promoting motorized use behind the gates.  The Bitterroot National Forest, for example, has recently updated their visitor map to promote motorized use on numerous ML1 roads.  

There is a catch — there are ML1 roads for which the Forest Service has issued a formal closure order — to protect wildlife, clean water or other natural resources.  These closure orders are legally enforceable, and they clearly state what uses are prohibited on the road or trail in question.  In most instances, the agency will post a sign at the gate, indicating the specifics of the closure.  The confusion comes in when the FS has downgraded roads to lower maintenance levels, including ML1, without issuing closure orders and without posting signs (and sometimes without installing gates).  The secondary confusion comes in when signs explaining the closures are vandalized and removed.  Then, all that’s left is a gate (if it hasn’t been vandalized as well).  If the Forest Service aggressively promotes the use of motorized recreation on some gated, closed roads, but not on others, then how are drivers ever supposed to know what a gate means when they see one.  It’s just nonsensical, and extremely counterproductive to their efforts to manage motorized recreation.  

When finished with the ongoing travel planning process, each forest will issue “motor vehicle use maps” (MVUMs) that show where vehicles are and are not allowed.  If the map recently issued by the Bitterroot National Forest is any indication (although it’s not a formal MVUM), new MVUMs will show some ML1 roads, many of them likely gated, as open to motorized use by off-road vehicles.  Instead of the new travel planning process improving enforcement capacity for the agency, it may very well encourage riders to drive around gates.  So perhaps we need to start a new campaign on public lands, with a mantra of “closed mean closed,” because the Forest Service doesn’t seem to understand the consequences of their proposed actions.

What’s in a Name?
This contradictory management policy is further exacerbated by the agency’s newly adopted (2005) definitions of roads and trails. Can you spot the difference?

Road: “A motor vehicle route over 50 inches wide, unless identified and managed as a trail.”
Trail: “A route 50 inches or less in width or a route over 50 inches wide that is identified and managed as a trail.”

The basic meaning of these two definitions is that a road is a road, unless we manage it as a trail, and vice versa. However, as if exploiting their own loophole, the agency is now promoting motorized use behind closed gates by considering a double classification for many ML1 and ML2 roads (those suited only for high-clearance vehicles) — they are “roads” and they are also “motorized trails.” In other words, an ML1 road can be simultaneously classified as a closed road, and as a trail open to motorized use. Such a road could have a gate across it to prohibit passenger cars, but it would be legal for ORV users to drive around the gate to use the road.

Unfortunately, the Forest Service does not have trail density standards to protect wildlife or aquatic resources.  By obliterating the line between road and trail, between motorized and non-motorized access, the agency has made it nearly impossible to manage roads and trails from a biological/ecological perspective (though some national forests do appear to include motorized routes when calculating open road densities).  Nonetheless, if you reclassify a road as a trail, all of a sudden your road maintenance backlog has dropped, your road density has dropped, your wildlife management requirements have changed, etc.  But the reality is that the same impacts are still occurring on the ground, the same impacts to water quality and wildlife, for example, but those impacts are no longer accounted for in the same way, since they are being caused by “trails” instead of “roads.”  

If the Forest Service wants to enable off-road vehicle riders to legally drive on Forest Service roads (most ORVs are not street legal, so they are not allowed on FS roads unless specific exceptions have been made in state law), then they should either reclassify the roads as ML2 (which requires more maintenance), or they should create a new travelway definition for “motorized routes,” and those motorized routes should be managed with the same natural resource requirements as roads.  

End of the Road
As part of travel planning, numerous forest managers are making the line between trail and road so blurry that it is not even visible.  Further, they are promoting actions that will seriously impact their capacity to enforce any new travel restrictions.  It’s time for the agency to ensure that “closed means closed,” and to make a clear distinction that roads (and if necessary, motorized routes) are for motorized use and trails are for non-motorized use.  Non-motorized recreationists and wildlife advocates must demand that the agency provide this clarity for all forest users, and that the agency apply the concept of “closed means closed.”  One of the primary purposes of the new travel planning process was to address the threat of unmanaged recreation.  It’s laughable to think that promoting motorized use on closed roads will help the agency manage recreation more effectively.