Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area; Bicycling

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>National Park Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>36 CFR Part 7</CFR> <DEPDOC>[NPS-CHAT-DTS0039013; Docket No. NPS-2024-0003; PPSEGUIS00 PPMPSAS1Z.Y00000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1024-AE80</RIN> <SUBJECT>Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area; Bicycling</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Park Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The National Park Service amends the special regulations for Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area to allow for bicycle use on approximately 20.6 miles of trails. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective January 22, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Docket:</E> The comments received on the proposed rule are available on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in Docket No. NPS-2024-0003. <E T="03">Document Availability:</E> The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area Comprehensive Trails Management Plan/Environmental Assessment (CTMP/EA), Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), and related project documents provide information and context for this rulemaking and are available online at <E T="03">https://parkplanning.nps.gov/chat</E> by clicking any of the links entitled “Comprehensive Trails Management Plan” and then clicking the link entitled “Document List.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Beth Wheeler, Chief of Planning, Resources and Education, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area; (678) 538-1321; <E T="03">beth_wheeler@nps.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Purpose and Management Authority for the Recreation Area</HD> The Chattahoochee River is one of the oldest and most stable river channels in North America. It begins as a tiny stream in northern Georgia, passes through the suburbs north of Atlanta, and flows 430 miles to its confluence with the Flint River at the Florida border. In 1978, the United States Congress established Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area by finding that the values of a 48-mile segment of the river and its adjoining lands in the State of Georgia, from Buford Dam downstream to Peachtree Creek, are of special national significance and “should be preserved and protected from developments and uses which would substantially impair or destroy them.” 16 U.S.C. 460ii. Congress stated that the Recreational Area shall consist of “the river and its bed together with the lands, waters, and interests therein.” 16 U.S.C. 460ii. In 1984, Congress amended the Recreation Area's enabling legislation by stating that the corridor located within 2,000 feet of each bank along the 48-mile river segment was “an area of national concern.” This amendment increased the size of the Recreation Area from 6,300 acres to 6,800 acres. A subsequent amendment, passed in 1999, expanded the authorized boundary of the Recreation Area to include an additional 3,200 acres and provided funding to support the acquisition of priority land-based linear corridors to link existing units of the Recreation Area and protect other open spaces of the Chattahoochee River corridor. The National Park Service (NPS) manages the Recreational Area as a unit of the National Park System. In addition to the enabling legislation described above, the NPS manages the Recreation Area pursuant to the NPS Organic Act of 1916, which gives the NPS broad authority to regulate the use of the lands and waters within System units. See 54 U.S.C. 100101; 100751(a). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Bicycle Use in the Recreation Area</HD> The Recreation Area is located within the Atlanta metropolitan area and is a valuable outdoor recreation resource for local residents as well as visitors from the rest of the United States and around the world. The Recreation Area's 48-mile stretch of river and 15 land units provide an ecological oasis within a densely populated region and contain more than 950 species of plants and a diverse assemblage of wildlife. Its green space and extensive trail network offer abundant opportunities for visitors to explore the riverbanks, historic sites, rolling forests, grassy meadows, and rocky bluffs. The clear, cold, and slow-moving river supports a variety of water-based recreational activities such as floating, paddling, rafting, boating, wading, and fishing. Bicycling is a popular form of recreation in and around the Recreation Area. Bicycles are allowed on roads and in parking areas that are open to public motor vehicle traffic; on an administrative road in the Cochran Shoals unit, the Fitness Loop, which also serves as a part of the trail system; and on a subset of trails. The total trail system is extensive, containing approximately 67 miles of designated trails in 12 of the 15 land units in the Recreation Area. Bicycle use occurs on approximately 11.6 miles of multi-use trails in the Vickery Creek, Gold Branch, Cochran Shoals, and Palisades units. Bicycle routes are designated in special regulations for the Recreation Area at 36 CFR 7.90 and in the Superintendent's compendium, which is a written compilation of designations, closures, permit requirements and visitor use restrictions imposed under the discretionary authority of the Superintendent, as required by 36 CFR 1.7(b). The Superintendent's compendium is available on the Recreation Area's website ( <E T="03">https://www.nps.gov/chat</E> ). Electric bicycles, which are defined in NPS regulations as two- or three-wheeled cycles with fully operable pedals and electric motors of not more than 750 watts that meet the requirements of one of three classes (36 CFR 1.4), are allowed in the Recreation Area where traditional bicycles are allowed. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comprehensive Trails Management Plan and Environmental Assessment</HD> In March 2021, the NPS published and sought public input on a Preliminary Trails Management Plan to help inform the development of the CTMP/EA and guide the development of a more cohesive trail system within the Recreation Area. Following the public scoping period, in April 2022, the NPS published the CTMP/EA which analyzes the potential environmental impacts of no-action and action alternatives. Under the action alternative, which is the NPS's preferred alternative, the total mileage of designated trails available for public use in the Recreation Area would increase substantially, and the NPS would improve the quality and sustainability of the trails to better serve visitors and achieve greater resource stewardship. The NPS would add approximately 32 miles of trails to the trail system, resulting in a 48% net increase in trail mileage, for a total of 99.3 miles. The NPS would allow bicycle use on 20.6 total miles of trail, an increase of approximately 9 miles. The NPS would continue to allow bicycle use on existing trails in four units of the Recreation Area. With the support of NPS partners, the NPS would construct a new, natural surface multi-use trail that would expand bicycle use in the Cochran Shoals unit, and construct new, hardened surface multi-use trails in the Settles Bridge, McGinnis Ferry, Suwanee Creek, Abbotts Bridge, and Jones Bridge units. New multi-use trails would be designed and situated so that in the future they could connect to a proposed 100-mile regional Chattahoochee Riverlands greenway project. Many of the new trails would be constructed on previously disturbed corridors, such as utility corridors or remnant roadbeds, to minimize new disturbance and protect historic resources. Trail width would vary by location but would not exceed 10 feet. Trails would be constructed using permeable materials to protect water quality and prevent erosion. In wet locations, special structures, such as boardwalks, would be built to limit trail widening from visitors routing around puddles and mud, which tramples trailside vegetation. In addition to evaluating the potential impacts of trail construction and modification activities, the CTMP/EA also evaluates the potential impacts of allowing bicycles on the new trails. Specifically, the CTMP/EA evaluates the suitability of each trail surface and soil conditions for accommodating bicycle use; and life cycle maintenance costs, safety considerations, methods to prevent or minimize user conflict, and methods to protect natural and cultural resources and mitigate impacts associated with bicycle use. An associated written determination concluded that bicycle use on all of the trails that would be designated in this rule is consistent with the protection of the Recreation Area's natural, scenic, and aesthetic values; safety considerations; management objectives; and will not disturb wildlife or Recreation Area resources. The CTMP/EA contains a full description of the purpose and need for taking action, the alternatives considered, maps of the affected areas, and the environmental impacts associated with the project. The CTMP/EA evaluates site-specific 60-foot-wide trail corridors. The NPS will determine final trail alignments within those corridors in consultation with NPS natural and cultural resources specialists, which could result in minor adjustments to the trail locations shown on the maps in the CTMP/EA. If the NPS needs to align a trail outside of an identified corridor, it would conduct additional environmental review of the alignment to avoid or minimize impacts to sensitive resources and would document the change ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━