State authorities have rolled out new rules aimed at cracking down on motor vehicle travel through the Pinelands, the latest chapter in a long-running debate over what the forest should be used for and how it should best be protected.
Officials from the New Jersey State Park Service held an open house at historic Batsto Village on Wednesday to unveil a new proposed map that shows which dirt roads street-legal vehicles will be allowed to travel on in Wharton State Forest.
Wharton is the single largest tract in the state park system, spanning well over 100,000 acres in the heart of the Pinelands. Hundreds of miles of dirt roads that weave through Wharton have long been used, with existing restrictions on vehicle access often going unenforced. The new map designates roughly 200 miles of roads in Wharton that will be open for use by street-legal, insured vehicles. The use of all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes, vehicles with tires larger than 40 inches and non-street legal vehicles will remain prohibited throughout the entire state forest, as they are now.
The state’s goal is to protect wetlands and other critical habitats that are threatened by off-road vehicle use — something that conservation groups have long called for — and to keep people off unsafe roads.
“We know folks are in areas that they shouldn’t be either because it’s dangerous for them or because it is destructive of a natural resource that is legally protected,” said Shawn LaTourette, the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Off-roading groups have fiercely opposed any restrictions on vehicle access in Wharton. “I think that’s going to really restrict access to … people who have had that access for really hundreds of years,” said John Druding, the president of Open TrailsNJ. Public comments on the proposed map will be accepted through March 9. The state plans to release the final map later this year.
