In September 2025, as part of its deregulation agenda, the Trump administration announced its plans to repeal the U.S. Forest Service’s Travel Management Rule. The Travel Management Rule provides forest managers a framework for deciding where motorized vehicles like dirt bikes, 4x4s, ATVs, snowmobiles and e-bikes can be driven within our national forests. The Travel Management Rule has been an important tool for reducing damage to wildlife and habitat.
Clarifying the specific roads and trails available for people to drive and access national forest lands is one of the most consequential decisions land managers make. Road and trail networks hugely influence habitat conditions and whether native fish and wildlife can sustain and thrive.
Repealing this Travel Management Rule would undo decades of thoughtful policy designed to maintain access to national forests while preventing excessive erosion, water pollution, and destruction of fish and wildlife habitat.
The Travel Management Rule
Two decades ago, the U.S. Forest Service decided to address one of its most significant management challenges, namely the damage to wildlife and forest ecosystems from unmanaged off-road vehicles and extensive route networks. The Forest Service issued three regulations over 16 years, collectively referred to as the Travel Management Rule. The goal was to get to a sustainable and beneficial transportation system for each national forest: one that enables recreational and commercial access without sacrificing our fish and wildlife heritage.
For each unit within the National Forest System, the Travel Management Rule requires:
- A transportation system designated for public motorized use. Designations are made through a local planning process and must consider effects on wildlife and other resources, maintenance needs and administrative capacity, and conflicts with other recreational uses. It is unlawful to drive motorized vehicles off the designated systems.
- Published maps showing the designated transportation system so that forest visitors and recreationists know where to go.
- Identification of unneeded routes, especially those contributing to resource damage, for eventual conversion to recreational trails or reclamation.
Before the Travel Management Rule
Before the Travel Management Rule, there was no consistency – and few constraints – on road-building or off-road vehicles. In many national forests, dirt bikes, 4x4s and other motorized vehicles could be driven anywhere – through fish-bearing streams and across wet meadows and other sensitive wildlife habitats – leading to fragmentation and disturbance.
When habitats become too fragmented, elk, grizzly bears and other wildlife decline and sometimes abandon the areas altogether. Effects on wildlife populations are seen at route densities as low as one mile per square mile. Most places within our national forests (outside of protected areas like Wilderness) currently average twice this threshold.
Given the absence of clear maps and consistent rules, even the most well-intentioned off-road vehicle drivers couldn’t tell where they should or should not drive their vehicles. Similarly, Forest Service law enforcement officers couldn’t hold bad actors accountable for their misbehavior. Acrimony and tempers flared as conflicts among backcountry recreationists grew. It was unmanaged and lawless – and our forests and wildlife were paying the price.
Dale Bosworth, the former chief who finalized the Travel Management Rule under President George Bush, identified unmanaged outdoor recreation as one of the four leading threats to our national forests. In a 2003 speech to the Izaac Walton League, Bosworth explained: “Each year, the national forests and grasslands get hundreds of miles of unauthorized roads and trails due to repeated cross-country use. We're seeing more and more erosion, water degradation and habitat destruction. We're seeing more and more conflicts between users. We're seeing more damage to cultural sites and more violation of sites sacred to American Indians. And those are just some of the impacts. We've got to get a handle on that."
Since the Travel Management Rule
Because of the Travel Management Rule, almost every national forest now has a designated transportation system displayed on Motor Vehicle Use Maps available at national forest offices and online. These transportation systems were established through local planning processes with robust public engagement.
In providing a consistent approach across all national forests for managing motorized vehicles and transportation, the Travel Management Rule helps reduce habitat damage and social conflict. It also provides a roadmap (literally!) for investing scarce maintenance and habitat improvement funds.
Repeal is nonsensical
The Travel Management Rule is not a household term, so Americans may not realize how much it benefits them – from maintaining native wildlife and providing safer and rewarding recreational experiences to reducing taxpayer maintenance costs. In the face of increasing outdoor recreation, off-road vehicles, and biodiversity losses, the Travel Management Rule is now more important than ever.
Yet, Forest Service Chief Schultz in September 2025 announced his intention to repeal the Travel Management Rule. Returning to the days of uncontrolled use of off-road vehicles and proliferating route networks makes no sense. It is also out of sync with popular sentiment. People, including many who ride off-road vehicles, desire clear, well-managed access that prevents excessive harm to fish and wildlife and user conflicts.
Minor improvements make sense
While it is vital that the Forest Service maintain the key elements of the Travel Management Rule described above, the agency could consider improvements.
First, since the Travel Management Rule was put into place, mapping technology has improved and is now widely available through smart phones. To make the maps more user-friendly and increase availability, the Forest Service should make the motorized route maps available through approved smart phone applications and improve the clarity and readability of printed maps.
Second, the Travel Management Rule could be updated to improve relevancy. While the Travel Management Rule requires forests to update travel maps annually to incorporate changes made through logging or other forest projects, it does not require national forest managers to periodically review and revise the transportation system to assure that, as a whole, the transportation systems for each national forest reflect current needs, resources conditions, and funding. Correcting this deficiency makes sense.
Third, the Forest Service could adopt a stronger approach to sustainability. While the Travel Management Rule’s intention was to work towards a sustainable transportation system, the road maintenance backlog continues to grow and motorized route densities routinely exceed ecological thresholds for wildlife.
An astounding 430,000 miles of roads and motorized trails blanket our national forests. That’s nine times the length of the U.S. Interstate System, and these networks remain unwieldy and far too expensive to maintain properly to protect natural resources. Requiring a transportation sustainability strategy as part of travel management plan revisions would help ensure the road and motorized trail networks are both fiscally and environmentally responsible.
Author
