What is Travel Management Planning?

Care about noisy, polluting, and dangerous ORVs using your favorite trail? Get involved in the planning process.

In November 2005, the U.S. Forest Service published the “Final Travel Management Rule,” which directs all National Forests to designate a system of roads, trails and areas for motorized vehicle use. The new travel management policy basically requires each Forest to identify those roads, trails, and areas that will be designated as open to motor vehicle use. In the past, all roads and areas were “open” unless otherwise designated “closed”. The new rule reverses this to, in theory, make enforcement easier.

• The rule requires each national forest or ranger district to designate those roads, trails, and areas open to motor vehicles of various classes (ATVs, motorcycles, and street-legal vehicles).
• Once designation is complete, the rule will prohibit motor vehicle use off the designated system or inconsistent with the designations.
• Each National Forest is going through its own process to gather input from local interests. Approaches vary widely from simply designating existing routes to proposing large-scale additions to the OHV trail system.
• Once the final Travel Management Plan is done, road and trail designations will be shown on a motor vehicle use map (MVUM). Use inconsistent with the designations will be prohibited.
  
  

More info:

Find out where different National Forests are in the planning process.

Photo credit top to bottom: Oregon Wild, USFS