[Talk-us] National Forest Development roads

[Paul Norman]

Following up on mappy hour comments on National Forest Development roads I
ran some queries.

There are about 24000 ways with this starting their name in OSM. Most of
them are in WA, OR, ID, MT or NV. Some others are found in AK, AR or NM.
They are, not surprisingly, found in forested regions. There are 4676 unique
names of these roads, but many of these are really duplicates.

As far as I can tell these are distinct from "Forest Roads" which are larger
routes.

Most of the information found is about the 2001 push to map these roads and
environmental impacts. Little can be found about numbering.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_007250.pdf states that
Forest development roads are assigned a number and inventoried by traffic
service levels
A through D. Not all forest development roads are marked on the ground. This
document is from Florida.

According to 36 CFR 261.2

"Forest development road" means a road wholly or partly within or adjacent
to and serving a part of the National Forest System and which has been
included in the Forest Development Road System Plan