Logging roads
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Logging roads are constructed to provide access to the forest for logging and other forest management operations. They are commonly narrow, winding, and unpaved, but main haul roads can widen, streighten and even be paved.
The choice of road design standards is a trade off between construction costs and haul costs (which the road is designed to reduce). A road that serves only a few stands will be used by relatively few trucks over its lifetime, so it makes sense to save construction costs with a narrow, winding, unpaved road that adds to the time (and haul costs) of these few trips. A main haul road serving a large area however will be used by many trucks each day, and each trip will be shorter (saving time and money) if the road is straighter and wider, with a smoother surface.
Logging trucks are generally given right of way. In areas where this practice is regulated (or is supposed to be) non-highway roads with heavy logging traffic may be "radio-controlled", which is to say a CB radio on board any vehicle on the road is advised for safety reasons.
Logging roads are often the major source of sediment from logging operations, which can continue long after operations are completed in the area. Construction of these roads, especially on steep slopes, can increase the risk of erosion and landslides which can increase downstream sedimentation. The decommissioning of these roads involves the restoring of natural habitat, which can be quite expensive, usually as much as it originally cost to construct the road.
The cost to the public (in public forests) of such road-building varies with each jurisdiction and the type of logging licence. Although many roads are justified to the public as providing access for recreational and other non-logging users, after their use to log extraction is over they are often quickly "decommissioned" to reduce their environmental impacts, and become relatively useless to other vehicular users. Amortizing the cost of these roads over and estimated use of 500 years has provided an accounting arrangement by which only 1/500 of the cost of the road is charged against the timber whereas the road builder is granted credit for the entire cost of the road. The road builder effectively gets the timber for free. The builder can use the excess credits to bid on additional US Government Timber Sales. Mountainbikers and hikers and others still can access these roads, but they are not maintained.
