I was just over in the great state of Idaho on one of my get away rides. I happened to bump into a friend of mine who has a contract with the Forest Service grading the back country roads. While talking to him he mentioned that if things were slow for me back home that I should consider bidding on some road obliteration up in that country. Road obliteration? I asked. Yeah, he said, you dig the rock base up and spread it out on the bank, then pull the fill up from underneath and spread it out where it came from and make it look like there never was a road there. We did some last year and had to cut fully grown timber to get it done. The word is that the Forest Service will be getting a lot of Stimulus Package money this year for it. That doesn't make sense, because if they didn't want road travel all they would need to do is hang a sign on it and stop the maintenance and the road would be impassable in 3-4 years, wouldn't cost but the sign, he added. And what are we gonna do about firefighting? If they just let the brush grow up we could open it back up with a cat if needed. I guess somebody just doesn't like roads. So if we go to one of our favorite riding spots and find we can't get from point A to point B, I hope we will all understand it is our current government in it's infinite wisdom is doing what is deemed necessary by those far wiser than any of us on the ground. This irreversible destruction of our resources is outrageous and reeks with contempt for those who have always used them. I don't mean to sound like a raving lunatic but just saying it like I see it. Stimulus money could be better spent improving and maintaining what we have already paid for. Road closures can be done with a sign and a gate. That way in the future if we come to the conclusion we want to re open them, we can.
You know the old story. America spent millions developing a pen that could write in space. The Russians us a pencil. Common sense does NOT always dictate. Gotta love change.
It happens all the time up here in Canada. That's our hard earned tax money at work... Here's what they say... Road decommissioning has been defined as “the physical treatment of a roadbed to restore the integrity of associated hillslopes, channels, and flood plains and their related hydrologic, geomorphic, and ecological processes and properties”. In practical terms, decommissioning is a process in which the Forest Service (FS) determines that a road is no longer needed or desirable and then physically removes it from the ground, the road database, and/or published maps. Road decommissioning should not be confused with road closure. Road closure implies temporarily prohibiting access to a road. This is an important distinction because some forests say they are “decommissioning” roads while in reality they are “closing” roads. For example, they may be placing a gate or barrier on the road entrance, but are leaving culverts and the road prism in place. The FS is “decommissioning” thousands of miles of roads for a variety of reasons. The most common are: * to eliminate environmental degradation; * to reduce impacts associated with motorized access; * to meet specific management requirements defined in Forest plans or court orders; and, * to avoid long-term road maintenance costs.
If there are existing roads you are not supposed to be able to make new wilderness areas out of it (except in California). If there are no roads then some bureaucrat can create a wilderness area to leave as his legacy.
Hate to say it but sadly that's an urban myth! Apparently the pen was developed independently and not government funded, and the Russians also used it. Pencils aren't good as the tip can break off, float away in zero g and get into the electrics. Mind you, according to a recent TV program a normal ball point pen works perfectly well in zero G anyway so perhaps the "space pen" actually was overkill. Totally agree with your point though as it's exactly the same this side of the pond. "Common" sense is actually quite rare, especially where any kind of government agency is concerned. ... recent UK headline: "The Ministry of Defence today brushed aside criticism of its attempt to cut compensation for wounded soldiers, telling the court of appeal that payments should be limited to the soldier's initial injury and not include subsequent disabilities."
Sure it's an urban legand, but it sure helps drive the point home! Not like our government doesn't know how to waste a buck or two. Ever heard about the $1,000 toilet seat ordeal? (Not sure how much they were, but again, what a waste!)
Can't argue with that! Wasn't that for use on an aircraft? If so it's probably true! I used to work on aircraft and I know how stupidly expensive everything was. We'd pay a fortune even for something as simple as a bolt you could have bought at the local hardware store for a hundredth of the price, apparently due to the high cost of the special design and quality control standards which have to be applied. Though now I come to think of it, we'd sometimes get castellated nuts with one or more of the castellations missing, bolts which had no thread at all, and my personal favourite, bolts with a split pin hole which had a bend in the middle, sometimes as much as 90 degrees so it was impossible to get a split pin through it. Endless hours of fun that one, if you didn't notice beforehand. I'm sure both our governments find plenty of ways to waste tax dollars outside of aviation though - the UK one has turned it into an art form! (ID cards anyone?)
Ah I see, an American joke! Actually, the way things are going it may end up that Idaho is the only place you can use a UK identity card. Nobody here has the card readers and the only UK nationals who were going to be forced to have the cards were pilots and airport workers, until the pilot union threatened to strike. Now they're not going to be compulsory for anyone (except resident foreign nationals), they're expensive, they're not secure (took 12 minutes to find out how to clone them), they're useless (among other things because errr... nobody has the card reader), so guess how many UK citizens will want to buy one... And the conservatives, who are likely to win the next election, have vowed to scrap ID cards if they get in. Total costs of the scrapped project are likely to be something like £30 billion (including £40 million of penalties the current government have built into the scheme to try to prevent it being scrapped if they lose the election). Which brings us right back to governments and their ability to waste a buck or two! Oops, seem to be getting slightly off topic. Must lie down in a dark corner.
No Joke intended. I am serious. I moved here from Idaho and visit on a very regular basis. I know some of the rangers up there and would like to honestly know where this lunacy is happening to see if the public can do something about it... thats all.
Somewhere there's a video of the destruction of a Corvette in the Cash for Clunkers program. One where they destroy the engine by running it with some chemical in the gas. Brilliant stuff.
PhilM, I feel for you if you had to leave Id. The practice of removing roads doesn't seem to be confined to any particuler area. My understanding is that it is a universal policy by the NFS. My friend said they won the bid for a job that was actually in Montana.
Then please accept my apologies, no offence intended. , Although Idaho's not my neck of the woods I'd totally agree that it's worth checking whether anything can be done. In mitigation, I said "(ID cards anyone?)" referring to identity cards, then you posted "What part of Idaho?" which I thought was a clever play on the fact that I'd used "ID" in a thread which started out discussing Idaho. My mistayk. (Nothing unusual there.)
