Advanced Resource Solutions, Inc.

Advanced Resource Solutions, Inc.

Specializing in Land Use, Travel Management and Recreation Planning, Mediation and Environmental Compliance

Historic Efforts at Route Evaluation and Designation

In the past, travel management planning, including route designation, has been performed in a number of ways. These attempts were often inadequate in terms of creating an administrative record to document the process, maintaining the data supporting the designations (i.e., data not readily accessible) or considering a wide-range of data sets. For example, often the only administrative record were the actual maps upon which agency staff identified the routes which would be open, closed or limited, but no background as to the reasoning for those designations was available. Or perhaps the data utilized for the route designations was located in disjointed data libraries or came from the undocumented personal knowledge of the agency specialists and that information could not be readily identified when looking at the designation maps. Alternatively, the data upon which the designations were based may have been limited in its scope (i.e., only considering impacts to listed species but not impacts to valid access rights).

Other attempts have been made to perform route designation solely based upon GIS spatial analysis as it pertains to wildlife impacts and route density. The issues surrounding travel management planning are much more complex than wildlife impacts and route density and using only those issues is overly simplistic in an attempt to create a viable route network. There are many other statutory requirements that must be met by agencies. While GIS analysis is a valuable and integral part of the route evaluation and designation process, it may not provide all the data necessary to make an informed and feasible designation recommendation. For instance, not all applicable data may be available in a GIS coverage (e.g. easements, right-of-ways, cultural resource surveys, etc.) and therefore would not be available for an evaluation system based solely on GIS analysis. The legal requirements set forth by various laws and acts of Congress cannot be ignored.

Some systems for route evaluation and designation have also been promoted wherein the routes that impact sensitive resources should automatically be closed and no additional data gathered about those routes (e.g. commercial uses, administrative needs, legal existing rights, recreational activities). However, later when an agency is performing their duties under NEPA to cumulatively assess the impacts of their actions, they must assess the impacts of that route closure to other resources (including socio-economic impacts and recreational activities). While a route may be closed, if all data was not identified during the route evaluation then the subsequent impacts analysis would likely be inadequate. Therefore, this method of route evaluation/designation would be flawed because no other data would have been gathered to adequately address the cumulative impacts analysis required by NEPA. Route evaluation cannot be based solely on one factor and one factor alone.

Route evaluation and designation must be performed through a holistic approach, one that does not promote a specific agenda favoring one resource or use over another, except when there are overriding legal justifications to do so (e.g. unauthorized routes in Wilderness). Route designations and travel management planning must be objective (based upon data regarding all aspects of the route and surrounding routes and areas) and not directed to accomplish a partisan outcome. There must be a neutral collection of data during the process. The need for this holistic approach is exemplified by the National Forest Management Act, which states in part:

(e) In developing, maintaining, and revising plans for units of the National Forest System pursuant to this section, the Secretary shall assure that such plans -

(1) provide for multiple use and sustained yield of the products and services obtained therefrom in accordance with the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 (16 U.S.C. 528-531), and, in particular, include coordination of outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, wildlife and fish, and wilderness¹ [emphasis added]

Land management agencies are placed in a difficult situation in that they must navigate this complex process in developing their route designations as part of their travel management plans while meeting the requirements of their organic acts and complying with applicable federal and state laws. They must consider and address impacts to sensitive resources (e.g. wildlife, plants, cultural, riparian, soils, air and water quality, wilderness, areas of critical environmental concern, monument objects, etc.), access rights (e.g. military, land holdings, commercial use permits, agriculture, ranching, mining, etc.), recreational activities (e.g. educational activities, hiking, equestrian, fishing, boating, photography, ATVs, jeeps, etc.), and special management units, allocations and goals (e.g. wilderness, areas of critical environmental concern, recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS), visual resource management (VRM), etc.), while working to minimize human interaction conflicts (e.g. user conflicts, trespass, safety, etc.). To do so requires a significant amount of conceptual planning and data management.

To assist land management agencies with creating a successful travel management plan, ARS has developed the Route Evaluation Tree Process^©.

Key Concepts Underlying the Route Evaluation Tree Process^©

Land use planners endeavor to utilize a route evaluation process that employs the successful aspects of past efforts, avoids their pitfalls, and involves the public extensively. Perhaps most importantly is the need to comply with statutory authority. Additionally, consultation with architects of past route evaluation/designation efforts, other land use planners, and extensive collaboration with the public has identified a number of other issues and concerns that should also be addressed if a route evaluation/designation process is to be successful. Many of these issues and concerns were derived from the identification of the shortcomings of past efforts or other route evaluation/designation processes. Principal amongst these criteria, issues and concerns were the following:

• Base route evaluation and designation on statutory authority, agency regulations and other legal guidance (e.g. case law), considering the breadth of agency responsibility.

• Evaluate and designate routes utilizing substantiated complete data of a variety of types: e.g. not only biological and cultural, but also recreational resources, commercial uses and land ownership.

• Base route evaluation and designation to the extent possible on current ground-truthed maps that identify a variety of information that reflects not only use, but very importantly the relationship of those uses with sensitive resources (i.e. not only location and route density, but also route type, use level, and recreational points of interest such as campsites, staging areas, etc.).

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that is systematic in its approach and that can be logically followed.

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that both assess each route on its own merits/issues (i.e. avoid lumping decisions) and that assesses the uses and effects of the route system on a landscape scale.

• Utilize a route evaluation and designation process that tracks and neutrally records the information that is a part of each evaluation.

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that considers the desired future condition.

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that establishes a system of routes that work together in a positive synergistic manner to create a functioning “network”. In order to achieve this synergism systematically, assess both individually and collectively the effects of route designation on biological, cultural and recreational resources, as well as the general access requirements of commercial and private property interests.

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that helps to establish a clearer link between the route designation decision and the reasons (e.g. biological, commercial, cultural, private property, recreational, conflict, etc.) most affecting the evaluation and that eventual designation.

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that systematically involves the public and clearly incorporates their input.

• Base route evaluation and designation decisions on a process that considers: the history of use, public safety, public use conflicts, the intensity and season of use and takes into account the various effects of concentrating versus dispersing use.

• Base route evaluation and subsequent designation on a process that addresses:

- both the number and level of impact(s) from each route as well as the collective impact of the route network on the landscape;

- the number, density and intensity of use of each route in assessing individual route impacts, as well as the collective effect of the network of routes on habitat fragmentation and function;

- the need to minimize or eliminate the number and intensity of conflicting land uses as well as conflicts between users (e.g. urban interface, noise, dust, visual impacts, quiet use zones, etc.).

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that is considerate of the variety of recreational visitors by offering a variety of routes (e.g. motorized vs. non-motorized; easy vs. strenuous hiking routes to address the needs for various levels of challenge; 4WD vs. motorcycle vs. ATV; beginner vs. technical motorized routes) and that is considerate of the length of the typical visitor’s stay by providing enough recreational opportunity for that stay. (The net effect of such considerations has been historically shown to be a decrease in route proliferation.)

• Base route evaluation and designation on a process that is considerate of the role and impact of “feeder” routes, is considerate of historic routes and recognizes the statutory need to provide appropriate levels of commercial and private property access.

Statutory authority, regulations and other legal mandates must be specifically addressed in route evaluation/designation. This is a key aspect for a successful process.

Recognizing and attempting to address the issues and concerns raised by the public represents the second very important aspect that needs to be considered. However, those considerations must be addressed within the framework required by the numerous laws guiding the agencies’ actions.

The third principal aspect of a successful evaluation and designation process is the inclusion of steps that ensure that the eventual system or network of routes helps to collectively achieve the desired future condition.

The last principal aspect, but certainly not the least, of a successful route evaluation and designation process, is inclusion of steps both before and after route evaluation that carefully consider area-specific planning issues and challenges, and then carefully assesses how management protocols designed to remedy those issues can best be implemented.

Consolidating these four principal aspects of a successful route evaluation and designation process into a logical, systematic and recordable process is the challenge that has generally stymied or led to the failure of past route evaluation and designation efforts. The Route Evaluation Tree Process^© was developed to incorporate these key aspects and avoid the pitfalls of past evaluation/designation projects and the shortcomings of other methods of route evaluation/designation.

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¹ 16 U.S.C. 1600 et seq.; text cited from 16 U.S.C. 1604.