First, apologies to Patrick for spelling his name wrong in the title of this piece as was sent out through email. I fixed it online.
Patrick McKay wrote the below as a comment, but it has enough information for a post, plus he is currently litigating a travel management decision, so we are hearing from the horse’s mouth, or from the motor vehicle’s engine or whatever the analogy would be. While researching this analogy, I found an interesting piece on why ATVs are so loud.
Patrick’s piece also raised other questions. If as Patrick says, and the general feeling I got from being around as the TMR was developed, was to have a standardized national process, then why didn’t it work that way in practice? Also what was the intent of Part A and how does that relate to what Patrick has observed? Perhaps we need some retirees who were involved at the “intention” stage (2004-ish) and I know some of you are out there.
Also, Bill Avey mentioned in a comment that Citizens for Balanced Use waited to sue on the Helena-Lewis and Clark travel plan. One idea that the Permitting Reform folks have is to shorted the litigation window, which has been negatively received by ENGOs. So I’m curious about “why people wait so long to sue” and wonder whether anyone knows the reason in this case.
If I were in the Admin, I’d experiment with a six-pronged approach. 1) each Forest gets feedback on its own travel management, what’s working and what’s not, 2) FS employees are asked what are the problems and what could help, 3) national FACA committee of the usual interest groups reviews what’s rolled up by others and proposes changes (with some folks on the FACA committee chosen for implementation knowledge and skills) 4) internal committee reviews “will this actually work?” issues, 5) a technology sub-group that asks the question “how can current technologies help?” which would include folks from current apps like Onyx, All Trails and so on, and 6) can we harmonize this effort (at least mapping- with BLM)?
My experience with FACA committees on the Roadless Rules and others (as well as the Committee of Scientists) is that they tend to be heavy on interest group reps and/or academics and sometimes lack implementation experience. Perhaps a six-pronged approach would better balance general principles with implementation, as it appears that this is where things went off the rails (or ATV trails). Also the views of the people (employees) carrying out the work tend to not enter the discussion at all, in my experience with NFMA and Roadless rules. This can easily be rectified.
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From Patrick:
I don’t think designated routes and MVUMs are going anywhere, and I doubt the Travel Management Rule will just be straight up repealed, but it will need to be replaced with something that is hopefully simpler and friendlier to motorized recreation.
As someone actively litigating a recent travel plan, it’s astounding how badly the existing TMR has been implemented and how bad the Forest Service is at following its mandates, to the point where I doubt any two forests have ever even used the same procedures in creating a travel plan. Every forest does it completely differently, and even things like the Travel Analysis Process that is supposed to be standardized isn’t, with different forests using widely different criteria and differing definitions of the same criteria (for example, some defining recreational use benefit to include the recreational experience of driving the road itself, while others only consider the destination at the end of the road). A simpler, more standardized process for travel management with clear criteria to consider could benefit everyone.
One thing that most people don’t realize is there are really two different Travel Management Rules rolled into one: the Subpart B route designation process that most people think of as a travel management plan, and the Subpart A minimum road system (MRS) designation that no one seems to know what it’s for, how to do it, or how it is supposed to relate to Subpart B route designations.
Most forests haven’t even tried to designate a MRS, and those that have, have followed totally different procedures and or tried to awkwardly tack it onto Subpart B planning in ways that haven’t held up in court. The Pike San Isabel NF seems to have weirdly conflated designating an MRS with the pre-NEPA Travel Analysis Process, even though FS handbooks explicitly say its supposed to be done through NEPA, which is now a primary issue in our litigation. I would love to see the Subpart A minimum road system section dropped from the TMR entirely, as that section has done nothing but cause confusion and litigation since it was adopted and is redundant with the actual route designations in Subpart B planning.
As for Subpart B planning, the Forest Service’s regulations have the same glaring flaw the BLM’s do — which is that there is no real consideration of motorized recreation benefits required at all. It’s interesting. The preamble to TMR explicitly said, “Motor vehicles are a legitimate and appropriate way for people to enjoy their National Forests—in the right places, and with proper management.” This sentence was supposed to be a compromise that ensured motorized recreation would be evaluated as legitimate multiple use. Yet, in the actual route designation criteria for motorized routes, recreation is almost nowhere to be found:
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(a) General criteria for designation of National Forest System roads, National Forest System trails, and areas on National Forest System lands. In designating National Forest System roads, National Forest System trails, and areas on National Forest System lands for motor vehicle use, the responsible official shall consider effects on National Forest System natural and cultural resources, public safety, provision of recreational opportunities, access needs, conflicts among uses of National Forest System lands, the need for maintenance and administration of roads, trails, and areas that would arise if the uses under consideration are designated; and the availability of resources for that maintenance and administration.(b) Specific criteria for designation of trails and areas. In addition to the criteria in paragraph (a) of this section, in designating National Forest System trails and areas on National Forest System lands, the responsible official shall consider effects on the following, with the objective of minimizing:
(1) Damage to soil, watershed, vegetation, and other forest resources;
(2) Harassment of wildlife and significant disruption of wildlife habitats;
(3) Conflicts between motor vehicle use and existing or proposed recreational uses of National Forest System lands or neighboring Federal lands; and
(4) Conflicts among different classes of motor vehicle uses of National Forest System lands or neighboring Federal lands.In addition, the responsible official shall consider:
(5) Compatibility of motor vehicle use with existing conditions in populated areas, taking into account sound, emissions, and other factors.
———While “provision of recreational opportunities” is listed in the general criteria in paragraph a, the specific mandatory criteria in paragraph b are all negative impacts to be “minimized”. Those are the only ones courts have said must be evaluated for each specific route, and the only ones with a required objective. The general criteria (which is the only place positive benefits of roads are listed) must only be “considered”, and there is no mandate to maximize recreational opportunities to balance with minimizing impacts. The focus of travel planning thus becomes solely about minimizing impacts rather than providing recreational opportunities, which is at best an afterthought.
In practice, only the most general analysis of recreational opportunities forest-wide is included in travel planning documents, while every individual route gets a detailed report of its negative impacts. At most, there might be an arbitrary recreational use benefit score assigned to individual routes (defined inconsistently as mentioned above), which the public rarely has any input on, and which is rarely enough to outweigh high scores for negative impacts. This makes closure the default designation and makes it extremely difficult to justify keeping routes open.
While the TMR’s preamble paid lip service to treating motorized recreation as a legitimate multiple use, the actual rule clearly does not, but frames motorized recreation as a second-class use to be tolerated only when it can be affirmatively shown to have minimal negative impacts on anything else. And by allowing motorized recreation only where impacts on non-motorized recreation are minimized, it sets up a clear hierarchy where non-motorized recreation is prioritized and the desired experience of non-motorized users trumps that of motorized users.
I would like to see the TMR amended to actually treat motorized recreation as a legitimate multiple use, giving it equal weight to non-motorized recreation and requiring an individual evaluation of recreational benefits for every route. For any route with at least moderate recreational value, the burden of proof should be on the Forest Service to prove that closure is the only feasible way to mitigate serious specific existing impacts (not just location based risks of impacts like forests usually consider currently). Especially considering most national forests have already been through at least one round of travel planning under the 2005 TMR, the default expectation really should be that every motorized route currently open should remain open permanently unless there is some really strong reason to close it.
Let’s be clear, I’m generally against increasing the impacts of motorized travel on the Forest Service’s road system. But given estimates of the Forest Service having over 360,000 miles of road, maintaining or reducing the effects of roads should be simple. Having worked on this topic out of the Washington Office for over a decade I agree with Patrick Manley to a point. Completing Subpart A and B of the Travel Management Rule were inconsistent across the nation despite consistent direction. Forests in the Southwest included a large number of user created roads as a starting point in their Subpart A. Forests in the Pacific Northwest did not. I agree that most of what the forests were “minimizing” were the environmental impacts of roads. Where I start to disagree, is the vast amount of road miles that were kept as part of the minimum road system had substantial environmental effects but were kept as they were needed to provide motorized access for commercial and recreational uses and to further forest management. So while motorized recreation wasn’t always addressed, motorized access was.
This process was extremely slow and many forests did not want to make a decision as whatever happened, somebody’s favorite road or motorized trail would be closed. Sure, that’s a over simplification, but all you have to do is look at the efforts in the Blue Mountain’s of Oregon and see how much money and effort has been expended without a decision.
An area where I think Patrick Manley and I might agree and really isn’t included in the Travel Management rule is how one defines a Minimum Road System changes over time as uses and the users of the roads change. In 2005 I would have never guessed that over half of the vehicles I would encounter on the roads of the Cache NF are ATVs rather than highway vehicles. The majority of the motorized trails on the Cache were designed for motorcycles, which I rarely see. And lastly, at least one in ten of the bikes I come across on non-motorized trails are e-bikes (which are illegal on those trails).
It’s clear Congress wants the Forest Service to do something about the changing desires of forest recreationist. The way I read that does not necessarily mean provide more access with more environmental road effects but a better thought-out plan to increase ATVs and e-bikes access (Public Law No: 118-234, EXPLORE Act). Identifying where motorized trail loops are possible and providing additional out-and-back motorize trails while reducing the environment effect of these activities should be simple. It is not, but this is not solely because of the environmental effects.
The difficulty does not lie in the Travel Management Rule either. It is because recreation, motorized or otherwise, is not a priority (other than to add fees for snowmobile parking). The Cache NF has been able to thin thousands of acres of juniper (in and out of Roadless areas) over the last decade which any meaningful analysis would show has had only a minimal effect on fire risk to urban areas or increasing mule deer habitat. Over the same time, however I am unaware of the forest having altered its MVUM in any meaningful way. Instead, the forest continues to fall behind in its road and trail maintenance and places I could get to in my truck a decade ago, can now only be accessed with an ATV.
Thank you, Brett! I did hear that one of the reasons for the Blue Mountain holdup was an unfortunate leadership change at a critical time. I’m sure there are many different perspectives out there.
As to the juniper thinning, what was the source of funding and the purpose and need? Or maybe point us to some project names?
Brett, A question.. we posted a piece by Don Amador on the need for roads money. https://forestpolicypub.com/2025/06/06/forest-roads-provide-critical-access-to-recreation-wildfire-and-forest-health-activities-guest-post-by-don-amador/
It sounds like you would know… what buckets do roads and trails money come from? Are they different? What do you think is the obstacle to getting more funding in those buckets? Are there not enough external organizations supporting those buckets? If you’d like to write a post on how all this works, it would be greatly appreciated!
Sharon wondered … “why people wait so long to sue?”
Answer: they rarely wait long to sue, because litigants typically want to stop the management action before it’s moot, and because delay can be considered by the judge when considering the equities in deciding injunctions and relief.
The reasons ENGOs (and other good govt groups) oppose shortening the statute of limitations is to preserve the rights of citizens to hold govt officials accountable IN THE RARE INSTANCES WHEN LAWSUITS NEED TO BE FILED LATER because new information arises late in the process, etc.
I’m not sure ENGO’s would count as “good government groups”… anyway, new information always comes into any decision. For example, I worked on a coal project. Markets and economic value changed while the litigation was ongoing. Or you could argue that, say, the 2001 Roadless Rule could be litigated because it didn’t take into account climate change.
I guess I could see years if say, a forest plan decision wasn’t ripe for judicial review until there was a project, or some other two-stage kinds of reasoning.
I can only speak to my experience, but in the case of our lawsuit challenging the Pike San Isabel NF travel plan, the decision was signed in fall 2022, we filed our lawsuit in early 2023, completed briefing in spring 2024, and then the court sat on the case doing nothing for a year and half until it was reassigned to a new judge, who has now finally scheduled oral argument for January 2026.
I’m not sure why other motorized groups might have waited longer to sue in other cases, but we filed our lawsuit basically as soon as we could after the decision, and it’s still taken three years to get the case in front of a federal judge. It will likely be four years after the travel plan decision before the judge actually rules on the case, and then we’ll see what happens with appeals. Even when you move as fast as possible, litigation is still extremely slow. And we were only able to file our case so quickly because we had engaged our attorney years before the travel plan was completed and we basically had already written our complaint before the final decision came out.
Can new information allow Federal or State entities to sue the ENGOs, or point out bad faith arguments, new emerging science?
Cuts both ways. If what you stated is acceptable, it should cut both ways.
Uh, no. Private organizations can sue federal agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act for violating specific statutes like NEPA, NFMA, etc. with a particular decision. In those case both sides are generally limited to the information in the project record. There are very few circumstances where either side can bring up truly new information. But if there’s no active lawsuit challenging a decision, there’s no mechanism for agencies to sue private groups unless that group broke some specific law (normally a criminal law). And that would have nothing to do with an agency project. It would have to be something like violating a closure order or vandalizing public lands.
So you are saying ‘2ndLaws’ comment that:
“…IN THE RARE INSTANCES WHEN LAWSUITS NEED TO BE FILED LATER because new information arises late in the process, etc.” is not applicable?
I do not entirely agree with your viewpoints, but definitely do not agree with what 2nd Law had posted here now and in the past. But I agree that everything at the time of a decision and document, is all you can go off of. There is an argument for considering all relevant info, scientific and anecdotal, although peer reviewed science is what courts way (sadly, since we have loads of agenda driven science that is not in fact good science (https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3232&&context=icwdm_usdanwrc&&sei-redir=1&referer=https%253A%252F%252Fscholar.google.com%252Fscholar%253Fhl%253Den%2526as_sdt%253D0%25252C5%2526q%253Dagenda%252Bdriven%252Bscience%2526btnG%253D%2526oq%253Dagenda%252Bdriven%252Bscie#search=%22agenda%20driven%20science%22)
If a lawsuit goes on for 2-5-10 years, should new info be applicable to a NEPA/EA/ decision?
Anon, I think that this particular discussion highlights the differences in my and 2ndLaws ways of thinking on this. I look for specific examples, from which we might see which examples we agree and which examples we disagree that a long time period is necessary, building from the specific to the general. She or he states the general principle (time is needed) and supports it with other claims (the instances are rare.)
The original decision would be reviewed under the APA based on the administrative record as it existed at the time of that decision. There are requirements under NEPA, ESA and NFMA to consider new information and changed conditions after a decision is made. Violations of this kind would be reviewed under a different APA requirement as a failure to act by the agency. There is generally no record to speak of for not making a decision, and these kinds of claims tend to be more difficult to pursue.
There is also the situation I alluded to in comments on the prior post where a party does not know they would be harmed by a decision until some subsequent occurrence. Whether that is litigated on the decision record or as failure to act would depend on the circumstances.
In answer to how road and trail maintenance is funded at the forest. Road and trail budgets are usually separate line items and declining in general. Where possible, road work is done as a part of timber sales when used as a haul route or can otherwise be justified within the sale area. Funding is combined for the Legacy Roads and Trails program (a different budget line item), and projects compete for those dollars based on Forest Service determined criteria (with sideboard from Congress) that can change from year-to-year. Some additional trail work is covered by legislation such as the Great America Outdoors Act. I started my career doing trail maintenance and every forest had a summer crew or two to do this work. Very few of these crews are now hired. There of lot of specific programs and lines in legislation that can bring in additional dollars to forests for specific roads and trails. For example, the Emergency Relief for Federally Owned Roads (ERFO) help federal agencies repair or rebuild roads that are damaged by large scale events like floods.
From what you describe, it sounds very patchworky, especially for those forests who don’t have timber sales to speak of.
I wondered about doing this for monitoring priorities on a grassland plan but it might apply to recreation..
Could the FS, with a group of stakeholders, prioritize projects, and then the public could see how much funding they get and how much bigger the needs are than the bucks coming in. Folks in the community or the outdoor industry, could chip in or volunteer to make up the difference.