Motorized use again revs foresters’ engine

JACKSON — The U.S. Forest Service seeks to change the process managers follow for planning where motorized use is permitted.

On August 25, the agency published its intent to analyze changing its Travel Management Rule, namely parts that require forests to generally prohibit motorized use except in specifically designated areas.

The proposal, still in its early stages, would eliminate the existing rule’s criteria of determining motorized use based on minimizing impacts to soil, water, plants and wildlife and replace it with an “access-oriented” framework.

The agency also has proposed exempting “Class 1” e-bikes, which can go up to 20 miles per hour and don’t have a throttle, from motorized use designation, meaning they could be ridden wherever bikes are permitted. The regulations would require forest managers to reconsider opening trails and roads closed to motorized use each year, as funding allows.

The new rules would help the agency align with Executive Order 14408, “Removing unnecessary and counterproductive restrictions on access to federal lands,” which rescinded two older executive orders that restricted off-road vehicle use. That’s according to the proposal published in the Federal Register.

Revisions are necessary because conditions have changed since those earlier executive orders, both from the 1970s, according to the agency’s proposal. Those changes include an expanding wildland-urban interface, wildfire, drought, changing technology and increasing recreation.

The proposal, published Monday, came less than a week after the agency published its environmental analysis on rescinding the Roadless Rule, which prevents road construction and reconstruction on about 45 million acres of national forest, including three million acres in Wyoming. The two proposals have overlapping 30-day public comment periods.

The agency proposed its repeal of the Roadless Rule in August 2025, putting it about a year ahead of the travel management changes.

The proposed travel management changes would “drastically weaken” the managing process, said Peggie dePasquale of the Wyoming Wilderness Association. Other preliminary concerns include muddying the water on e-bikes and loopholes that could keep planning decisions out of public view, she said.

The existing rule was “put in place for very valid reasons,” said Linda Merigliano, who retired last year after 34 years as the recreation specialist for the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Prior to the Travel Management Rule, there were lots of local complaints about unregulated, off-highway vehicle use, she said. There were also many incidents of all-terrain vehicle rollovers because people were trying to drive up routes that were steep and not designated for motorized use.

The rule allows for local decision-making with public involvement, while establishing a nationally consistent framework, Merigliano said.

There aren’t a lot of details about the changes that might ensue, but current decisions on travel management appear to stay in place under the proposal, said Tricia O’Connor, former forest supervisor for the Bridger-Teton. The travel management changes could have more impacts than the Roadless Rule repeal, given that the agency doesn’t have the funding to actually build a lot of roads, she said.

Many forest roads are closed to motorized use because the Forest Service doesn’t have the funding to maintain them, O’Connor said.

Administering where motorized vehicles should be used always has been controversial, O’Connor said. When the Bridger-Teton planned its motorized use, it was “really hard to be productive because it was so polarizing,” she said. Public comment is open through September 23. Comments can be left at Tinyurl.com/TravelManagementRule.