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Docket FS-2026-0100 · comments closed 23 September 2026 · 134,377 comments on the record
Every national forest road and trail to be opened to motor vehicles by default
The Forest Service wants to flip the rule that decides where vehicles can go: every existing route open unless someone writes down a reason to close it, and the four tests for soil, water and wildlife gone. Comments closed 23 September 2026.
See the map Write your commentEvery national forest road and trail to be opened to motor vehicles by default
Since 2005 a road or trail on a national forest has been closed to vehicles until the forest weighs the damage to soil, water and wildlife and puts it on a Motor Vehicle Use Map. On 24 August 2026 the Forest Service proposed flipping that: every existing route open unless someone writes down a reason to close it, the four tests gone, and digital maps made the legal record, over a network with 51,274 miles of motorized trail that have no mapped location in the agency’s national route data. Comments closed 23 September 2026.
We are working through all 112 of them
One email when the Forest Service files the rule itself, and when a comment window opens on the public lands you use. Nothing else.
Three minutes, and it goes on the federal record
Anyone can file a comment. You do not have to be an expert, you do not have to live near a forest, and you do not have to know the regulation. What the agency has to answer is a comment that names a place and says what the writer knows about it. Identical form letters get bundled and set aside.
There is a second reason to file. Arguments nobody raises during the comment period generally cannot be raised in court later, so this window is also where the record for any legal challenge gets built.
We will write it with you. Pick your forest, say in your own words what you do there and what you have seen, and your letter comes back carrying that forest’s own figures, including how much of it has no mapped location in the agency’s national route data. You edit it, you file it. Nothing you type reaches us.
Write your comment File one yourself on regulations.gov Read the explainer first
Public comment ran through docket FS-2026-0100 until 23 September 2026. 134,377 comments are on the record.
Questions people are actually asking
What is a Motor Vehicle Use Map?
It is the legal document that says where you may drive a vehicle on a national forest. Each forest publishes one, it lists roads and trails by the class of vehicle allowed and sometimes by season, and if a route is not on it, the route is not open to public motor vehicle use. The Forest Service says 168 of its 174 units have one.
What is the Forest Service proposing to change?
Two things above all. First, the starting assumption. Today a route is closed unless a forest studied it and designated it open; the proposal would make routes open unless a forest documents a reason to close them. Second, the national criteria at 36 CFR 212.55(b), which require a forest to weigh damage to soil, watershed and vegetation, harassment of wildlife and disruption of habitat, conflict with other recreation, and conflict between classes of vehicle, with the stated objective of minimizing all four. The proposal would remove those from the national rule and leave the judgement to each forest.
Does this affect me if I do not own an off-road vehicle?
Yes, because those four criteria are the grounds a forest uses to decline a route. They are what a supervisor points at when saying no to a track through a wet meadow, to engine noise on a trail people walk for the quiet, or to a road that sends sediment into a creek. Taking them out of the national rule does not by itself put a route anywhere. It removes the standard that route had to clear first.
What happens to routes that are closed today?
The notice does not say, and that is one of the questions the agency states it will study: whether the open-unless-closed presumption applies only to designations made from here on, or reaches routes already closed. It is one of the most useful things to address in a comment, because an alternative the agency has said it is considering is one it has to respond to on the record.
Why does it matter that some trails have no mapped location?
The same proposal would make integrated digital maps the authoritative public source for what is designated. More than half the motorized trail network has a recorded length in the agency's national route database and no location, so no map built on that data can draw it, including this one. A route with no location in that data is one a rider can't prove from it they're allowed to use, and one a future map can leave out without anyone noticing. That gap cuts against riders and everyone else at the same time. It's a count of the agency's national data, which the proposal would make the legal record, and not an audit of any forest's own printed map.
How do I comment, and does it matter?
Comments go to the Forest Service through docket FS-2026-0100 on regulations.gov. Anyone can file one and you do not need to be an expert. Identical form letters get bundled and set aside; a comment that names a forest, says what the writer knows about it, and objects to a specific part of the proposal is one the agency has to engage with on the record. Arguments not raised during the comment period generally cannot be raised in court later, so this is also where the record for any future challenge gets built.
The two mileage figures on this page, and why both are here
The route data carries two different lengths for the same route. One is measured from the route where somebody has drawn it. The other is the length recorded in the agency’s database, and it is there whether or not anyone ever drew the route at all. For roads the two agree within about half a percent. For motorized trails they do not, and the gap between them is the finding above.
| Measure | Roads | Motorized trails | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recorded in the route database | 198,893 | 98,281 | 297,174 |
| With a mapped location in the national data | 197,616 | 43,918 | 241,534 |
They are two measures of one network. We never add them together and never swap one for the other.