The Forest Highway Program: "Improving" Wyoming's Scenic Dirt Roads...at Taxpayer Expense

by Steve Jones

In the last issue of Frontline, we updated you about plans to "improve" the Loop Road, a narrow, scenic dirt road that lets you drink in the smells of sage and pine as you putter along the southeastern edge of the Wind River Mountains. This is only one of many dirt roads in remote areas of Wyoming whose beauty and grandeur can take your breath away. Unfortunately, many of them are in danger of becoming major thoroughfares, if the Forest Highway planners have their way.

Temporary Reprieves
Federal highway money for one road that is in danger of becoming wider, straighter, faster and a lot more dangerous for wildlife has been at least temporarily headed off at the pass — Union Pass, that is. This road could be a fast shortcut from Dubois to Pinedale if it were upgraded. As it is now, the Union Pass Road attracts little traffic, because parts of it are very slow going and can be driven only cautiously and carefully. However, if it were upgraded, the road could disrupt traditional wildlife migration corridors and separate the wildlands of the Wind River Range from the rest of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

On May 4, the three agencies involved in designating new Forest Highways met in Cheyenne: the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the U.S. Forest Service and the Wyoming Department of Transportation. During this meeting, several roads which traverse national forest lands were considered for designation as forest highways.

There was a long list of nominations. The Union Pass Road was one of them. But the agencies decided against designating it as a Forest Highway. Without Forest Highway designation, the Union Pass road will not be eligible for highway funds from the Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-first Century (TEA -21), Congress’s latest highway funding pork-barrel bill.

Unfortunately, the Forest Service says there is still money out there to upgrade the Union Pass Road. This is true even though the Forest Service claims it does not have even 1/8th of the budget it needs to maintain its existing roads in their current condition. So the battle is far from over on the Union Pass Road. Stay tuned.

Other roads that were spared Forest Highway designations include the Cody-South Fork Road and the Douglas-Cold Springs Road. The Moskee Road (between Sundance and Moskee) was the only road that was "de-listed," i. e. taken off the nomination list. But at least that proves that it can be done.

Backcountry Roads at Risk
But other roads are in danger of losing their winding, narrow, rural character. At its meeting in Cheyenne, the agencies designated a number of other backcountry roads as Forest Highways. See if your favorite road is among them:

Bridger-Teton National Forest:
Wilson-Fall Creek Road+
Green River Lakes Road (Forest boundary to Green River Lakes)
LaBarge Creek Road
Greys River Road
Smiths Fork Road
Buffalo Valley Loop+

Shoshone National Forest:
Louis Lake Road

Medicine Bow National Forest:
Sage Creek Road (Battle Mountain Road to Rawlins)+
Douglas-Esterbrook Road+

Thunder Basin National Grassland:
Dull Center Road

Note: + partially paved road

Of all the roads newly designated as Forest Highways, perhaps the most disappointing were three which divide up the Wyoming Range area: the LaBarge Creek Road, the Smiths Fork Road and the Greys River Road. This tri-complex of roads will undoubtedly increase traffic by enabling forest users to move more easily from Alpine, at the north end of the Wyoming Range and the Grayback Ridge area, to the south end of the range and the Commissary Ridge area.

This part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF) contains many roadless areas, but no wilderness areas. Habitat protections are slim, and getting slimmer. The BTNF is still trying to conduct a large timber sale (10 million board feet) in the upper Greys River area, and better roads (paid for by taxpayers) will make it easier for timber companies to haul logs out of that beautiful country.

In the Medicine Bow National Forest, the Sage Creek Road, which goes from Battle Mountain Pass to Rawlins, may also be upgraded. One section of the road, the celebrated Aspen Alley, is extolled by the Wyoming Division of Tourism in a national print-ad campaign promoting the state’s scenic backcountry dirt roads. "Improving" this scenic treasure would be a travesty.

Program Reforms Needed
The Forest Highway Program needs serious scrutiny. The Cheyenne meeting was open to the public, but no advance public notice was published, so citizens had no way of knowing about the meeting. In the future, when these three agencies meet, they need to notify the public at least 30 days in advance, as well as issue a meeting agenda.

It is important that the Forest Service and FHWA reevaluate the role of roads in our forests, and do more to make sure that backcountry roads keep their backcountry character.
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Steve Jones is an attorney practicing in Jackson, WY. For the past two months, while WOC Program Director Caroline Byrd participated in an all-women’s team climbing Cho Oyu in Tibet, Steve served in her stead. Among the projects he tackled was the Byzantine world of the federal Forest Highway program.
 

What You Can Do

Write to:

Craig Actis
Federal Highway Admin.
Program Coordination Engineer
555 Zang St.
Mail Room 259
Lakewood, CO 80228

Or call him at:
303-716-2011