Number: RL32142
Title: Highway Rights of Way on Public Lands: R.S. 2477 and Disclaimers of Interest
Authors: Pamela Baldwin, American Law Division 
Abstract: A succinct provision in an 1866 statute known as {R.S. 2477 granted rights of way across unreserved federal lands for the construction of highways. The provision was repealed in 1976 by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, an act that also protected valid rights of way already established by that time. What definitions, criteria, and law should be applied to confirm or validate these R.S. 2477 rights of way has been controversial. The issues are important to states and communities whose highway systems are affected, and also because the rights of way may run either through undeveloped federal lands that might otherwise qualify for wilderness designation, or across lands that are now private or within federal reserves created after the highways might have been established.
Pages: 63
Date: Updated November 7, 2003