A Measurement Decides a Trail’s Fate
Fifty inches. That’s the width of a bath towel laid out flat, or two dining chairs pushed together. It’s also the number a lawyer, not an engineer, chose twenty-five years ago to decide which off-road routes across 44 million acres of national forest are legally protected from repair and which ones aren’t. Twenty-five years.
The U.S. Forest Service just opened a rulemaking process that could reshape how motorized vehicles are allowed to move through national forests and grasslands nationwide.
The MAPWaters Act has cleared Congress and is headed to the President’s desk.