Reply #37: Yep, most forest would be off limits as well. [View All]

[Xithras]

Right of way laws simply state that you cannot use your property ownership to block others from accessing THEIR property, or the public from reaching public lands. My parents place in Oregon has a ROW road across it for this very reason...the property behind them doesn't touch a public road anywhere, so the neighbors had a legal right to request an access path through neighboring property. The neighbors have to maintain the roadway and keep the gates up, but there's nothing that my parents or anyone else can do about it. I would argue that there is nothing they SHOULD be able to do about it.

Many of the access roads to campgrounds in the Sierra Nevada cross land owned by the lumber companies (Sierra Pacific Lumber is the largest landowner in the state). The State of California gets to maintain these roads across private property because of this same law...the lumber companies cannot use their ownership of the forestlands to prevent public access to public lands beyond their property.

Heck, even the beaches here in California rely on this sort of thing. By law, all beaches are public property, but in practice they tend to be surrounded by private land. Public ROW laws permit you and I to cross their land to reach the public beaches. How would we respond if those landowners were allowed to start charging "admission" to access a beach that by law belongs to every resident of the state?

Lose the ROW laws, and you lock the public out of a LOT of public spaces...by foot AND car.