If you use a motor vehicle to access public lands, this message is for you.

The US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are closing over 10,000 miles of existing roads on public lands in a process called Travel Management Planning. With an additional 15,000 miles on the chopping block, we can expect a majority of Arizona public land to be inaccessible by 2024.

Why are these roads closing?

Federal land management agencies use a process called Travel Management Planning to meet congressionally mandated objectives required by multiple federal laws. Although these laws have nothing to do with roads, roads are considered the number one threat to sustainability and biodiversity and are therefore targeted for elimination while carrying out land management planning.

During the Travel Management process, federal agencies evaluate all existing roads in each Travel Management Area and collect public comments regarding issues that should be addressed in the proposed plan. In particular, federal agencies request information on roads that are unaccounted-for in the travel network, existing resource concerns, and other actions that should be taken. Federal land managers argue that roads which are not included, will be closed and therefore encourage public land users to participate.

Local clubs and non-governmental organizations that claim to represent motorized users, the environment, and other factions of civil society, work to include roads and trails in the proposed plan. The Federal agency will then make a proposal that designates existing roads open or closed for public use and evaluate the environmental impact of their decision. On average, 60% of existing roads are closed during the proposed action.

To justify this process, federal land managers rely on division between motorized user groups, propaganda that vilifies motorized use of roads, and a radical interpretation of policy that ignores states’ rights, state and federal law, and Supreme Court precedent. They have pitted us against each other and have convinced many public land users to forfeit fundamental human rights to “preserve for future generations.”

Why are these roads important?

A majority of roads on public lands are property rights of the state of Arizona and should be governed according to state law. Meaning, governance procedures such as maintenance, improvements, closure, and abandonment should be conducted according to Arizona Revised Statute 37.931. Arizona Revised Statute 37.931 places the governance of roads on federal land in Arizona under the jurisdiction of the local political subdivision.

Arizona Revised Statute 37.931 is Arizona’s acceptance of the grant issued by the U.S. Congress in June of 1866 in Section 8 of the Mining Act of 1866. Known as Revised Statute 2477, it granted western settlers the “right of way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public use,” and resulted in the formation of 90% of roads on federal lands, including most of Arizona’s backroads, county roads, state highways, and international highways.

The US Constitution limits the federal government’s legislative jurisdiction to lands where authority is ceded by cession statutes of the state legislature.

These travel management plans have been ongoing since the early 2000s and were withdrawn in 2018. Starting in 2022, federal agencies are releasing their final decisions and all plans are expected to be complete by 2024.