How can you call for closing roads when roads are needed for access for firefighting, restoration work, recreation, access to private inholdings, and other transportation needs?
Roads will not be closed without weighing the risks of leaving the open versus closing them. Reducing effects from roads is what we are primarily interested in (see table 3-5, RM-O2, RM-S1 through S7, and their rationale statements for more discussion). We may keep some roads open but improve their management, recognizing we still need access for recreation, commodities, and restoration. Various access considerations are addressed in HU-O11, HU-O16, HU-S8, and RM-S9 in table 3-5. We think we can close a lot of unneeded roads and not reduce access. But we’re leaving the exact “where” of road closures and construction to local decisions. As a point of clarification, most roads that would be targeted for closure are native surface (dirt) roads. We may need to address the issue of providing access to private inholdings where there are public roads leading to them in low-road-density watersheds.
