Access group wants counties to update maps

POCATELLO, Idaho – A group working to keep public rights of way open is trying to force counties to update road maps.

Ted Ransom, director of Save Our Access Rights-of-ways, hopes that the updated road maps will encourage residents to travel down some seldom-used roads, keeping them from being closed by private landowners. Ransom said his group is working with state lawmakers to try to force the map updates.

“Bannock County is better than some, but they’re still not up to date,” he said.

SOAR President Craig Shuler said if a roadway was in use before the U.S. Forest Service was established in 1946, it is supposed to remain open to the public. But landowners sometimes close access because they don’t know the law, and if the right of way is not contested, those roads can stay closed, according to SOAR.

The group uses old maps, historical accounts and even family genealogy records to try to prove public access rights.

But Marv Hoyt, Idaho director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, said sometimes logging roads and other private roads have been wrongly claimed as public. He said legal attempts by counties to win access to such roads generally lose.

Expanding motorized travel on public lands will harm water quality and wildlife habitat, Hoyt said.

The public access law was intended to protect prospectors and miners from encroachment by homesteaders. It was ratified into U.S. code in 1938, but was repealed in 1976 when the Federal Land Policy and Management Act was put into place.