Economic Effects of Roads

This section deals exclusively with the economic effects of roads on National Forests.  Future expansion is planned to provide coverage for private and other public lands.

Both benefits and costs are associated with building, maintaining, and continued use of Forest Service roads. Likewise, benefits and costs are associated with removing existing roads. The issues revolve around whether the good things outweigh the bad things and what the extent of roads should be in National Forests.

Some economic activity is supported by building and maintaining roads: economic activity also is supported by decommissioning roads. Analyses for the 1995 RPA program suggest that about 33 jobs nationwide are supported per $1 million expenditure on building and maintaining roads (Alward and others 2000). A reasonable speculation might be that roughly the same rate of employment would be supported by removing existing roads and restoring the land underlying them. Road building and removal represent one-time stimuli to the economy, but maintaining roads is a recurring stimulus.

The major effects of roads on local economies, however, would be expected to result from the economic activity those roads support by providing access to the National Forest and to communities in or near it. On Forest Service roads, that activity includes logging, silvicultural operations, and recreation, among others. Also supported is economic activity that depends on recreation, such as guides, outfitters, and rafting permittees. The roads also provide access for land management and firefighting operations.

Indirect (and approximate) indications of the amounts of economic activity that might be associated with changes in Forest Service roads can be obtained from several sources. Reports indicate that timber harvest from National Forests supports about 16.5 jobs in the local area per million board feet harvested (USDA Forest Service 1996). That estimate is conservative because it is based on summed local-area models. Recreation use of National Forests supports from 1,000 to 2,000 jobs economy wide (nationally) per million trips, depending on the primary activity, based on analyses done for the 1995 RPA program (Alward and others 2000, Archer 1996). Use of public land, in general, follows roads. In Alaska, for example, intensity of use by both hunters and nonconsumptive wildlife users follows road corridors (Miller and McCollum 1997). Further, we hypothesize that more casual users such as scenery gazers, picnickers, car campers, and day hikers that constitute the bulk of National Forest recreationists probably stay closer to the road than do some hunters and backpackers, a minority of National Forest recreationists.

Whenever timber is cut and removed from the forest, roads will be needed; even helicopter logging at some point converts to road use by truck hauling. One issue is the quality of the roads and the length of their lives; that is, whether they are permanent and remain after timber harvesting ceases, or temporary and closed after harvest. Permanent roads are available for other activities, primarily recreation and management activities. Temporary roads are available for timber activity and some incidental activity during harvest, but when the roads are closed, benefits accruing from those roads cease. It is at least conceivable that the cost of maintaining a road over time sometimes outweighs the cost of removing it at the end of one timber harvest cycle and rebuilding it for the next one. Environmental effects (and costs) of multiple entries and decommissioning of temporary roads must be balanced against those of a single permanent road. Permanent roads cost more to build and maintain than temporary ones, with increased potential for degrading the ecosystem, but they can result in more benefits over longer periods than temporary roads because of the access they allow.

Roads affect spatial patterns of forest use. Changes in roads change those patterns. Recreational users are particularly attracted to or driven away from particular areas by the availability and ease of access. With decreased access to the National Forest, some users might drop out and give up outdoor recreation. Others would shift their use to other areas, some on Forest Service land and others off. The result would be reduced economic activity in the locale where forest access was decreased and increased economic activity in areas where displaced users moved. In general, the effects would be reversed if access were increased. Sometimes, however, increased access could lead to decreased use. For example, a new road and associated commercial activity could degrade a landscape for viewers.

Another result of spatial shifts in recreational use could be to concentrate use in areas to which displaced users move. Concentrated use may increase environmental effects as well as decrease the quality of peoples experiences. Crowding imposes costs on existing users by diminishing the benefits they received from their recreational use.

Anything that affects the demand for and benefits received from recreation and other uses of Forest Service land has subsequent economic effects, and it may alter development because land uses drive local economic activity. Forests and local economies will be affected differently, depending on the mix of local activities.

Building or removing Forest Service roads and maintaining existing roads can help mitigate ecosystem degradation associated with roads. Note that the tradeoffs are between the expense of minimizing or eliminating environmental degradation associated with Forest Service roads and the value of access to Forest Service land with associated economic activity. Many roads are or have been funded by the timber program. Benefits accrue from use of those roads for activities other than timber, largely recreation. This contrast presents a classic problem of joint cost allocation, and the accounting problem of attributing cost should not be used as an excuse for looking only at specific programs or components of the Forest Service mission.

The jobs and other economic activity supported by building and maintaining roads must be balanced against the cost of building and maintaining those roads, including costs resulting from choosing not to maintain selected roads. The question is: Do the benefits associated with the roads, both direct and indirect from all sources, justify the cost incurred by society, including costs of increased ecosystem degradation from deferred or inadequate maintenance?