Abstract 

Managing access to public land is a complex and challenging task, in part because of the multiple user groups that often seek access to those lands and because of the multiple social, economic, and environmental objectives that are typically expressed for public lands. These objectives are sometimes hard to rationalize among each other and with access demands of various user groups.

In many instances, public access occurs on industrial corridors, including oil and gas roads, pipelines, and seismic lines. By facilitating public access, these corridors may exacerbate cumulative effects beyond the direct effects resulting from the construction and use of these corridors by the oil and gas industry. Thus, attempts by the industry to limit its cumulative effects may be enhanced by sensible programs for managing access by the public, and by other commercial sectors, to oil and gas corridors. This approach may be particularly useful and necessary to justify the construction of new corridors in areas where cumulative effects concerns have been identified. In practice, however, the ability of the oil and gas industry to manage public access is sometimes limited by legislation and government policy.