Seattle Forrest

The Forest Service is out of money and cannot maintain all the roads it has.

They've been working on this decommissioning plan for years. The public has had plenty of opportunity to comment on which roads should be closed and which should be maintained. Public comment has been taken into serious consideration. The roads that are being decommissioned are the ones that are least-frequently used for outdoor recreation (eg by hikers, climbers, hunters, etc).

Many of these roads will become trails, like the trail to Otter Creek Falls in the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Valley, which used to be a logging road.

There are a lot of benefits to closing roads that don't get much use. A lot of the area in question borders on Wilderness, and residents have been asking for the Alpine Lakes Wilderness to grow for a very long time. That can only happen after the roads have been decommissioned.