BLM Designates Labyrinth Rims Gemini Bridges Travel Management Plan
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MOAB, Utah — Today, the Bureau of Land Management Moab Field Office announced a new travel management plan for public off highway vehicle use, including passenger vehicles. The Labyrinth Rims Gemini Bridges Travel Management Area consists of approximately 812 miles of travel routes over roughly 300,000 acres of public land in Grand County, Utah. The new plan provides predictability and clarity for users, minimizes user conflicts and damage to natural and cultural resources, meets access needs, increases public safety, and addresses law enforcement issues within the area.
“The BLM appreciates public interest in this project, including input provided during scoping and the public comment period and the questions received at the public meeting in September 2022,” said Nicollee Gaddis-Wyatt, Canyon Country District. “We received more than 10,000 comments during the public comment period and incorporated much of the feedback into the plan. Substantive comments resulted in changes to the analysis in the environmental assessment and edits to the baseline information in the route reports and helped inform the BLM’s decision.”
This travel management plan solidifies a route network consisting of a combination of the route designations analyzed in the environmental assessment as alternatives B, C, and D. The BLM sought to minimize impacts to resources and user conflicts by focusing travel on routes where BLM’s data suggests that use is less impactful. Within the Moab Field Office, 96% of the Jeep Safari routes remain available for off highway vehicle use. These routes are generally well used and defined, and due to frequent and long-standing uses, additional impacts to natural and cultural resources, as well as user conflicts, were determined unlikely to occur.
The decision, maps and specific route information are posted on the BLM’s ePlanning website. For more information, please visit BLM Utah’s travel management webpage at www.blm.gov/travel-and-transportation/utah.
Photos of the travel management area can be found on the BLM’s Utah Flickr website: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzL88X.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.