The move is part of the current administration’s systematic dismantling of the safeguards that keep public lands safe, accessible, and managed for everyone.
On Friday, August 21, 2026, the US Forest Service (USFS) published a Notice of Intent (NOI) to initiate rulemaking that would upend the agency’s long-standing Travel Management Rule. The notice initiated a short, thirty-day public comment period, which will be followed by a proposed rule.
This move is part of the Trump administration’s systematic dismantling of the safeguards that keep public lands safe, accessible, and managed for everyone. Repealing the USFS Travel Management Rule - while simultaneously seeking to weaken BLM rules governing off-road vehicle use - will reshape how travel management is implemented across more than 430 million acres of public lands.
Since 2005, the Travel Management Rule has successfully balanced access for off-road and all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes, hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, anglers, hunters, and more, while also preventing damage to sensitive public wildlands and wildlife. The proposed change would upend the current standard that motorized vehicles need to stay on roads, trails, and areas designated for their use in order to protect wildlands, wildlife, public safety, and other resources.
The Travel Management Rule protects access by supporting basic public land infrastructure. Maps, designated routes, seasonal restrictions, signs, enforcement standards, and public planning are the basic tools needed to manage millions of visitors safely and equitably.
There are currently 370,000 miles of roads in our national forests, 265,000 of which are open to motorized users. There are also an additional 60,000 miles of motorized trails. Turning the current “Closed unless marked open on a map” approach on its head will lead to widespread expansion of user-created motorized routes and significant damage to beloved wildlands here in Wyoming and to National Forests all across our country. By putting routes in the right places, maintaining them, and addressing damaging or unsustainable routes, travel planning can improve the motorized experience and provide greater certainty about where people can ride and drive. The goal is not less access, it is better, more durable access that works for everyone and keeps our public lands worth visiting.
Existing travel plans that the Travel Management Rule supports have been developed route by route, year by year, and with extensive public involvement and significant taxpayer expense. Rolling back the Travel Management Rule could force agencies and communities to revisit settled decisions, invite new litigation, and squander millions of dollars already spent creating workable local systems.
Roads and trails don’t just provide access for people; they also influence how wildlife experience and move across the landscape. The Travel Management Rule protects sensitive landscapes and species, both here in Wyoming and across the nation, by implementing thoughtful, science-based travel planning that preserves connectivity, and both conserves and restores habitat.
In short, the Travel Management Rule requires agencies to plan motorized use, minimize damage, protect other visitors, and respond when vehicle use is harming public land resources. Eliminating those protections would not improve access - it would replace locally developed plans with uncertainty, conflict, and unmanaged use.
Tell the USFS you support keeping the Travel Management Rule as it is! Submit your public comment by the 11:59pm EST (9:59pm MST) September 23, 2026 deadline via the comment portal.
PLEASE NOTE that in their ongoing efforts to silence the public voice, the administration is working to dismiss form letters and petitions. For this reason, rather than provide our own WWA comment portal and pre-filled comment form, we are asking that you use the information provided below to go directly to the agency comment portals to draft your own letters in support of the USFS Travel Management Rule as it stands using the talking points above.