SUMMARY: An analysis was conducted on the Medicine Bow National Forest to determine the how far each parcel of land is from an existing road. The analysis found 72.9% of the lands are within 0.5 miles of an existing road, 90.6% of the lands are within 1.0 mile of an existing road, 96.8% of all lands are within 1.5 miles of an existing road, and 98.9% of all lands are within 2.0 miles of an existing road. These results indicate the existing road network provides more than adequate access to nearly all lands on the National Forest, and access would not be impaired if new road construction is prohibited. In contrast, the study found only 1.1% of the lands on the Medicine Bow National Forest are more than 2.0 miles from an existing road. This indicates there are few areas where wildlife and citizens can escape roads and motorized vehicle disturbances on the Forest.

For these and other reasons, the USFS has proposed to prohibit the construction of new roads into roadless areas on National Forests lands across the country. Despite strong public support for protection of the remaining roadless areas (see, e.g., American Viewpoint poll of January 2000), some have criticized the USFS's "roadless area" proposal, claiming it would significantly impair access to National Forest lands -- both for public use and for "management" of National Forest resources. To determine whether this criticism is valid, Biodiversity Associates conducted an analysis of all Medicine Bow National Forest lands to determine their distance from existing roads. Existing roads would not be affected by the USFS's roadless area policy and therefore provide an indication of which National Forest lands would remain accessible if the policy is adopted. By analyzing distance of lands from existing roads, it is also possible to identify areas that are far from roads and therefore have high potential value for wildlife and recreation.

For each of the management Units on the Medicine Bow, ArcView was then used to create maps showing all system roads on three main Unit as well as the results of the "distance to nearest road" analysis. All areas found to be more than 2.0 miles from an existing system road were depicted in black. All areas found to be between 1.5-2.0 miles from an existing road were depicted in dark gray. All areas found to be between 1.0 and 1.5 miles from a road were depicted in medium gray. All areas found to be between 0.5-1.0 miles from a road were depicted in light gray. And all areas within 0-0.5 miles of an existing system road were shown as very light gray. Lands that are not part of the MBNF (e.g., state and private lands) were depicted in white and not evaluated for distance to nearest road.

The results of the "distance from nearest road" analysis for all lands on the Medicine Bow National Forest are shown in the following tables and in the attached Figures. Figure 2 is the classification map for the Snowy Range Unit, Figure 3 is the classification map for the Sierra Madre Unit, and Figure 4 is the classification map for the Laramie Peak Unit. All three Figures show qualitatively that most lands on the National Forest lie in close proximity to existing roads. This implies most lands are accessible from existing roads. The Figures also show the Snowy Range Unit of the Medicine Bow National Forest has three areas of land located more than 2 miles from existing roads. The Sierra Madre and Laramie Peak Units each have only one area of land where people can get more than 2 miles from an existing road. The quantitative results of the analysis are shown in Tables 1 and 2 below.

TABLE 1:     Percentage of Landbase Classified By Ranges of Distance from Nearest Road Distance From Nearest Existing Road Percent of Landbase Within Distance Range 0.0 - 0.5 miles 72.9% 0.5 - 1.0 miles 17.6% 1.0 - 1.5 miles 6.3% 1.5 - 2.0 miles 2.1% more than 2.0 miles 1.1%

TABLE 2:     Percentage of Landbase Classified By Minimum Distance to Nearest Road Distance From Nearest Existing Road % of Landbase Within Specified Distance % of Landbase Beyond Specified Distance Within 0.5 miles 72.9% 27.1% Within 1.0 miles 90.6% 9.5% Within 1.5 miles 96.8% 3.2% Within 2.0 miles 98.9% 1.1%

These results confirm that nearly every acre (or more precisely, 0.873 acre parcel) on the Medicine Bow National Forest lies close to an existing road, implying nearly every acre is currently accessible. The results also show there are few places on the Forest that are located more than 1.5 miles from an existing road.

It should be noted that these results actually underestimate accessibility to lands on the National Forest in several respects. First, there are many miles of "non-system" roads and trails on the MBNF -- including roads on state and private inholdings, and legal and illegal motorized vehicle trails -- and the study completely ignored access provided by these routes. Second, the study ignored all roads south of the Wyoming-Colorado line. There are many USFS system roads south of the state-line that provide access to lands on the MBNF. For instance, the State Line Road (FDR 80) runs just south of the MBNF border in Colorado. If all such roads and trails were considered, more MBNF lands would be found to be accessible, and fewer MBNF lands would be found to be located away from roads.

Finally, the analysis did not evaluate access to National Forest lands by means of snowmobile, bicycle, horseback, skies, snowshoes, hiking, boat, off-road vehicles, or other means of travel off of the Forests system roads. When all such modes of access are considered, every acre of land on the MBNF -- including lands inside designated wilderness areas and roadless areas -- is seen to be accessible by various means. These modes of access will not be affected if the USFS's proposed roadless area is adopted.