Who owns the ground, and what the state says about driving on it
There are over 55,000 acres designated as state management area in Rhode Island, run by the Department of Environmental Management through its Division of Fish and Wildlife and its Division of Agriculture and Forest Environment. The big ones are Arcadia at 14,692 acres across Hopkinton, Exeter, Richmond and West Greenwich, Big River at 8,496 across West Greenwich, Coventry and Exeter, Great Swamp at 3,615, George Washington at 3,503, Buck Hill at 3,192, Durfee Hill at 2,466 and Carolina at 2,151. Burlingame is 1,779 acres beside the campground of the same name, with a separate 884-acre North Camp parcel counted as state park.
The department states its vehicle rules in three short sentences that are worth reading before you leave home. All-terrain vehicles are prohibited statewide. Motorcycles are prohibited except in designated portions of Arcadia Management Area. Blocking any gate, road or access in a state management area is prohibited and subject to fines. Camping is prohibited on all areas apart from the portions designated at Arcadia and George Washington.
Except for fishing, hunting and launching or mooring a boat, every management area is closed from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise. Groups of ten or more need a special use permit from the department’s Management Area Stewardship Committee. None of this leaves much room for a vehicle to wander, and that is the point: what is open to you is the road grid and the designated areas, and the department publishes which is which.
Source 6
The barrier beach is where a vehicle leaves the pavement
The Coastal Resources Management Council issues the beach vehicle permit, and it is unusually clear about what the permit is for. In its own words, permits are issued "primarily to ensure that vehicles can safely travel off road and are equipped with safety equipment in the event that they get stuck in the sand", access is controlled by the towns or by the state parks division, and "A CRMC Beach Vehicle Permit does not guarantee access anywhere". The original purpose was to let fishermen reach the water.
Through the summer season the council says driving on beach areas is generally prohibited across the state under town rules, with two exceptions it names: the Block Island beaches under Town of New Shoreham rules, and the state-owned East Beach Sand Trail in Charlestown under state parks rules. The trail holds 30 vehicles, first come and first served, and the department closes it when the limit is reached. Parking anywhere other than the designated lots or pull-offs between 1 April and 15 September costs you the permit.
The council and the department also publish the local picture together. Beach driving is allowed in four coastal communities: Westerly, Charlestown, South Kingstown and Block Island. On Block Island vehicles reach State, Scotch and Mansion beaches by way of Corn Neck Road all year, restricted in the summer season to between six in the evening and eight in the morning, with access to the North Light available year round by way of Sachem Pond. In Charlestown three beach access points open through the Ninigret Conservation Area after 15 September, and driving is allowed only from the Breachway to the town beach. South Kingstown prohibits driving on its beaches at any time under its own town code, leaving the Charlestown Beach Road sand trail as a public road with pedestrian access points and, in the council’s warning, possibly nowhere to turn round or park. Westerly keeps vehicles off the beach from 1 May until the Saturday after Labor Day and allows the Quonochontaug Sand Trail only between 15 September and 15 June.
The shoreline itself is moving under all of this. Council mapping shows the shoreline receding more than 200 feet between 1939 and 2014 in many places, with the result that roads laid out behind the dunes years ago have become beach. Those stretches are exactly where piping plovers nest, which is why the trail can be rerouted or closed outright from April to August.
Source 22
Five state campgrounds, and which of them take a vehicle
Burlingame State Campground in Charlestown is the big one, with approximately 700 campsites and 20 cabins beside Watchaug Pond, no utilities, and a main camp restricted to tent camping only. George Washington State Campground in Chepachet is a 100-acre primitive facility inside the management area, with 74 well-spaced gravel sites suitable for trailers and RVs, hike-in tent sites, two group sites and four cabins, and again no utilities. Fishermen’s Memorial in Narragansett is the one with hookups: 147 trailer sites and 35 tent sites across four areas, one of them RV only and one of them restricted to tents and canvas pop-ups.
The two coastal campgrounds are the ones that turn rigs away. Charlestown Breachway is restricted to fully self-contained camping units, which the department defines as units with manufacturer-installed permanent holding tanks for potable water, grey water and black water so that nothing can leak or be dumped. Pop-ups, hybrids and conversion campers with any kind of canvas top are refused at the Breachway outright, open fires are not allowed there at all, and only one extra towed or non-towed vehicle may park per site.
East Beach is the strictest and the most interesting. Camping there is offered in two areas on three miles of undeveloped beach, restricted to fully self-contained units that are also equipped with four-wheel drive. Travel trailers and fifth wheels are prohibited, tent camping is not allowed, pets are not allowed, and every camper must hold a barrier beach permit before arriving. The department states that part or all of the campground may close during the season for piping plover nesting, in which case reservations are cancelled and refunded in full.
Source 11
What closes, and when
Rhode Island’s seasonal constraints are fire, hunting and thaw, in that order of consequence for a traveller. The department runs two fire districts, District 1 for Providence, Bristol and Newport counties and District 2 for Kent and Washington, and says Red Flag Warnings are usually only issued during the spring and autumn fire weather seasons, 15 February to 30 April and 1 October to 15 December.
When the Weather Service issues one, public lands managed by the department including the state campgrounds may not allow open campfires. What is prohibited while a warning is active is listed plainly: campfires, charcoal fires, cooking fires, candles and any device that emits flames or embers. What is still allowed is just as plainly listed: portable cooking stoves using liquefied or bottled fuels, propane or liquid-fuelled lanterns, and propane fire pits. A guide that cooks on gas travels through a Red Flag day without changing its plans.
Hunting seasons govern what you wear rather than where you go. The parks regulation puts every user of a state management area, hikers and cyclists and riders included, in 200 square inches of solid daylight fluorescent orange from the second Saturday in September to the last day of February, and again from the third Saturday in April to the last day in May. Five hundred square inches during shotgun deer season. Fluorescent camouflage does not count.
Winter is the mildest of the three. NOAA’s state climate summary puts average accumulated snowfall at about 20 inches on Block Island and the southeastern shores of Narragansett Bay and 40 to 55 inches in the western part of the state, which is where the management areas are, with Providence around 29 degrees in January and 74 in July on statewide annual precipitation of about 46 inches.
Source 34
Block Island, and what the crossing asks of a vehicle
Block Island sits about 12 miles off the southern shore, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs a refuge there, describes the crossing in one useful sentence: "The trip to Block Island will require a boat ride or an airplane flight. Passenger ferries run from Newport, RI and Montauk, Long Island, NY during the summer months and from Point Judith, RI all year." The refuge is about four miles from the ferry landing.
Read that as a vehicle owner and it tells you two things. The year-round service is the Point Judith one out of Galilee, and the summer additions from Newport and Montauk are described by a federal agency as passenger ferries. Plan the island around the Point Judith boat, and plan the last mile of the mainland around Galilee, where the state boat ramp lot limits parking to 72 consecutive hours and tows anything left longer at the owner’s expense.
The island itself is small enough that the General Assembly wrote a law about its rental scooters. Chapter 31-19.3 of the General Laws exists because of "the increasing number and severity of accidents involving motorized bicycles, motor scooters and motorized tricycles, the noise, and the traffic congestion that their presence creates within the town", and it lets the New Shoreham town council cap the number of rental licences, cap how many machines each licence holder may rent, set the hours they may be rented, require an annual state inspection, and charge up to forty dollars per machine. One town, one statute. That is the scale of Rhode Island.
Source 40
The roads themselves
Rhode Island designates scenic highways through a scenic roadways board rather than a published byway network. Under chapter 24-15 of the General Laws, the transport director or any municipality may apply to the board for a highway to be designated, the board holds a public hearing, and the owners of property fronting the road must be notified and given the chance to attend. In the town of Westerly the bar is higher still: no designation may be approved unless the owners of a majority of the lineal lot frontage file written agreement within sixty days.
That process produces designations one road at a time and the department of transportation publishes no list of them that a reader can open, so this guide names none. What it does name is the one federal designation, the Revolutionary Heritage Byway in Bristol, which the Federal Highway Administration records at six miles with no fee.
Everything else is ordinary state highway, and in a state this size that is usually enough. Route 165 and Route 138 carry you into Arcadia, Route 1 runs the south coast past the Charlestown ponds, and Route 146 and Route 123 bracket Lincoln Woods. Distances between them are measured in minutes.
Source 28
Passes and routes
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Arcadia: the designated motor route
18.9 miles
The only route on Rhode Island management area land that the state designates for motorised recreation. The regulation names it as an 18.9-mile total loop of gravel roads and fire trails: Arcadia Road, Austin Farm Road, Brook Trail, Barber Road, Blitzkrieg Trail, Bliven Trail, Frosty Hollow Road, Mt. Tom Road, Summit Road and Old Ten Rod Road, also called White Church Trail. No riding behind any gated gravel or fire trail unless it is designated, no hiking trails, no single track, and no new trails may be cut or marked. The department may close sections for high or extreme fire danger, seasonal mud, or the life cycle of a target species. 9
- Vehicle
- Street-legal registered motorcycles only, licensed riders, liability insurance. 25 mph or as posted
- Season
- No riding beyond the gated portions during March and April, or before 1pm during May
-
The management area is over 14,000 acres of mixed hardwoods, evergreens and fields, the largest in the state, spanning Richmond, Exeter, Hopkinton and West Greenwich and reached off Routes 138 and 165. Town and state roads inside the boundary that are not part of the designated motorcycle route may be used at any time by a road-legal vehicle. Fluorescent orange requirements apply to every user during the hunting season, cyclists and riders included, and the management area rules apply alongside a separate set for the Reynolds Horsemen’s Area. 15
- Vehicle
- Any street-legal vehicle, obeying local and state motor vehicle rules
-
Big River Management Area
At 8,496 acres across West Greenwich, Coventry and Exeter it is the second largest management area in the state and the second largest block of public ground a vehicle can approach here. The department’s own table puts it behind Arcadia and ahead of Great Swamp at 3,615 acres, George Washington at 3,503 and Buck Hill at 3,192, which is the whole top of the list in a state this size. 6
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George Washington Management Area and its campground road
The parks division calls this the 4,000-acre George Washington Management Area, against the 3,503 acres in the hunting guide’s own table, and the campground is a 100-acre primitive facility inside it on the shores of Bowdish Reservoir. Seventy-four well-spaced gravel sites take trailers and RVs, and a site is limited to either two tents and two vehicles, or one camper with one tent and one extra vehicle beyond the one towing. The Angell Loop sites A1 to A7 are hike-in only, about a quarter mile up a trail that turns rocky and uphill, with no drinking water at the sites. 11
-
Pulaski State Park and the George Washington trails
A 100-acre day use area inside the George Washington Management Area, with the 13-acre Peck Pond, picnic ground and ten miles of groomed trails running out into the management area in winter. Fluorescent orange requirements apply to every user during the hunting season. Boats and flotation devices of any kind are prohibited on Peck Pond. 17
- Season
- Cross-country ski trails close at 3:30pm and depend on snow
-
Burlingame State Park and Management Area
The state’s largest campground sits next to the Burlingame Management Area and the Kimball Wildlife Sanctuary, with approximately 700 campsites, 20 cabins and no utilities. The nearly 8-mile John Vincent Gormley Trail runs through the park and the refuge, follows the roadway in places, and crosses the management area where hunting is allowed, so the orange rules apply to it in season. Park restrooms run 1 May to 31 October. 16
-
East Beach Sand Trail, Charlestown
3 miles
The one place in Rhode Island where a vehicle drives the sand through the summer, and it is rationed. East Beach is the easterly extension of Quonochontaug Neck, a three-mile barrier beach separating Ninigret Pond from the ocean, reached only through the state parks entrance. Thirty vehicles at a time, first come and first served; the department closes the trail when the limit is reached. A beach parking fee applies to any vehicle using the trail in the summer season unless it is registered for a campsite. Ten miles an hour, all day use vehicles out by sunset and none in before sunrise, no fires, and any rut or hole a stuck vehicle leaves gets filled by the person who made it. 22
- Vehicle
- Four-wheel drive with a barrier beach permit. All wheel drive is not accepted
- Season
- Driving on the beach itself 15 September to 1 April; sand trail only between 1 April and 15 September
-
Quonochontaug Sand Trail, Westerly
A sand trail in the western corner of the coast with rules that are all prohibitions. Vehicles are not allowed on Quonochontaug Beach at any time and may not leave the sand trail to drive on the beach at any time. Both sides of the trail are private property and parking along it is prohibited. Sections may be closed for piping plover nesting. The town keeps vehicles off its beaches from 1 May until the Saturday after Labor Day and whenever lifeguards are on duty. 22
- Vehicle
- Four-wheel drive with a barrier beach permit
- Season
- Vehicles allowed only between 15 September and 15 June
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A golden sand beach on Block Island Sound, known to the state as one of the best saltwater fishing areas in South County, with a boat launch reaching both Ninigret Pond and the Sound and a camping area on the east side of the breachway within walking distance of the beach. The beach itself is day use only: gates close at sunset, in-season hours run from nine in the morning, and no alcohol, glass, dogs, smoking, RV camping or tent camping is allowed on it. The parking lot is small and fills quickly on hot days. 14
- Vehicle
- The camping area takes self-contained RVs only
-
Corn Neck Road and the North Light, Block Island
Block Island National Wildlife Refuge is about 12 miles offshore and about four miles from the ferry landing. It was established in 1973 with the transfer of 28 acres from the Coast Guard and has grown to 134 acres, and it holds the largest gull colony in the state. The refuge is open sunrise to sunset, pets are not allowed, and the scenic ocean walk to the North Light is bordered by refuge land. 39
-
Revolutionary Heritage Byway, BristolPaved
6 miles
Rhode Island’s only National Scenic Byway, six miles through Bristol past historic homes, waterfront parks and a downtown on the National Register, with views of Bristol Harbor and Narragansett Bay. The Federal Highway Administration records no fee for it. 35
-
Beavertail Road, JamestownPaved
The state park at the southern tip of Conanicut Island, made from federal surplus land, where the parks division says outright that the most popular activity is sightseeing and it can be done from the comfort of a vehicle at one of four overlooks. The 1856 lighthouse marks the entrance to Narragansett Bay. 18
-
Colt State Park and the East Bay Bike PathPaved
464 acres of lawn, stone wall and curving drive along the Narragansett Bay shore at Bristol, with four miles of paved pathway and a boat ramp carrying four feet at mean low tide. The park’s bike trails meet the East Bay Bike Path, which runs from Bristol to Providence. 20
-
Lincoln Woods State ParkPaved
Rhode Island’s first state park, between Routes 146 and 123 north of Providence, entered past a covered bridge at Breakneck Hill. Trail use is zoned: the horse trails west of Quinsnicket Road are for equestrian use only, and those east of it are multi-use and open to mountain biking. Boat motors are limited to under ten horsepower and motorised boats are barred at weekends and on holidays from Memorial Day to Labor Day. 19
-
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge
One of five national wildlife refuges in the state, established in 1970 on 858 acres of upland and wetland that was once the Charlestown Naval Auxiliary Landing Fields, with over four miles of hiking trails and an observation platform at Grassy Point looking over Ninigret Pond, the largest coastal salt pond in Rhode Island. The Kettle Pond Visitor Center on the headquarters unit, a forested parcel bought in 2001, doubles as the state refuge headquarters. 36
-
Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge
787 acres in South Kingstown held in fee title or conservation easement, of fields, shrubland, woodland, fresh and saltwater ponds, sandy beach and dune. The first 365 acres were donated in 1974 and the Audubon Society of Rhode Island added 151 in 1982. An approved land protection plan expanded the acquisition boundary by 1,283 acres, so the refuge may grow to 1,536 acres from willing sellers. 37
-
Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge
The Middletown refuge on the ocean side of Aquidneck Island, which the Fish and Wildlife Service calls one of the few remaining undeveloped coastal properties in Rhode Island, managed for piping plover, saltmarsh sparrow, snowy owl, harlequin duck and monarch butterfly. Its trails take more than 320,000 visitors a year, which for this state is a crowd. 38
-
The Narrow River pull-outs, Route 1A
The John H. Chafee National Wildlife Refuge at Pettaquamscutt Cove was established in 1973 and covers 550 acres, set up specifically to protect the black ducks that winter there. There is no refuge trail system at all. The Fish and Wildlife Service directs visitors to the Middle Bridge pull-out and Sprague Bridge on Route 1A for a view of it, with designated fishing access points and parking across the street on town property. 41
-
Blackstone River Valley National Historical ParkPaved
Established 19 December 2014 as the 402nd unit of the national park system, with its boundary finalised on 27 July 2021. It is a set of places rather than a block of land: Blackstone River State Park in Lincoln, the Old Slater Mill National Historic Landmark District in Pawtucket, the Slatersville Historic District in North Smithfield, the Ashton Historic District in Cumberland, two Massachusetts districts, and the Blackstone River and Canal themselves. 43
-
Roger Williams National Memorial, ProvidencePaved
Established by Congress in 1965, a 4.5-acre green space in downtown Providence with a visitor centre, exhibits and a short film. The parking lot is free but only for visitors actively on the grounds, with a two hour limit, which is the practical detail that matters if you are driving something long. 42
Rules worth knowing
- A truck is not a “recreational vehicle” in Rhode Island law
- The state defines a recreational vehicle as a motor vehicle, minibikes included, designed to travel over unimproved terrain "and which has been determined by the division of motor vehicles as unsuitable for operation on the public way and not eligible for registration for such use", and the definition expressly takes in any three-wheel driven vehicle and any other four-wheel driven vehicle of any type or design, including all classes of all-terrain vehicle. A plated, insured, road-legal truck or van is not one, so the chapter’s registration and operation rules are not about it. That is our reading of the statutory definition rather than a quotation. 23
- All-terrain vehicles are prohibited statewide
- The Division of Fish and Wildlife puts it in five words in its own regulation guide: "The use of ATVs is prohibited statewide." The same list says motorcycles are prohibited except in designated portions of Arcadia Management Area, that camping is prohibited on all areas apart from the portions designated at Arcadia and George Washington, and that blocking any gate, road or access in a state management area is prohibited and subject to fines. There is no state trail system for small machines here and no forest road network standing in for one. 6
- If you do bring a registrable machine, it is 25 dollars and a safety course
- No snowmobile or recreational vehicle may be operated in the state unless registered, on penalty of a hundred dollar civil fine for each offence. Registration is twenty-five dollars for one year and a dollar for a duplicate or transfer. On top of that there is an annual fee of ten dollars for residents and twenty for non-residents on all off-road facilities the department establishes, and no machine may be operated on one without it. The safety course is required for all first-time buyers and every operator under sixteen, and proof of completion is carried whenever the machine is off private property. 24
- A registered machine crosses a road, it does not use one
- Operating a snowmobile or recreational vehicle on the roadway shoulder, the inside bank or slope, or anywhere within the right of way of a Rhode Island highway is prohibited, and they may never be within the right of way of an interstate or freeway. A direct crossing is allowed at any hour if it is made at roughly ninety degrees, at a place with a clear view, after a complete stop, yielding to oncoming traffic, and with front and rear lights on between half an hour after sunset and half an hour before sunrise. Street use is otherwise permitted only in an emergency where snow makes car travel impractical. 25
- Written consent before anybody else’s land
- No person may operate a snowmobile or recreational vehicle on property owned by another person without the written consent of the owner, and the same applies to operating a machine owned by someone else. The fine is up to a hundred dollars for each offence. In a state where the great majority of the ground is private and the parcels are small, this is the rule that decides most questions. 26
- Where a motor vehicle may travel on department ground
- The regulation that covers state parks and conservation management areas together is specific. All motor vehicles must be legally street registered and operated by a licensed driver. Motor vehicles "shall be operated only in designated areas, no motor vehicles are allowed off roads or trails where prohibited, except with official written permission". The speed limit is 25 miles an hour unless posted otherwise. Drivers yield to every pedestrian and every person on horseback using or crossing a road, trail or highway. No travelling in streams, rivers or bodies of water except at designated crossings. No parking that blocks a road, gate or trail. Off-road recreational vehicles must be street registered and used only in designated areas at designated times. 7
- Management areas close at dark, and camping there needs permission
- Except for fishing, hunting and launching or mooring a boat, all management areas are closed from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise, other than snowmobiling on established trails in Arcadia and George Washington-Pulaski or under a written permit. Camping in designated conservation management areas is allowed with official written permission or a special use permit. The LeGrand Reynolds Horsemen’s Area in Arcadia may not be occupied for more than four continuous days, with a one day break before re-occupying, and is limited to campers with horses unless the department says otherwise. Closures of areas, roads or trails may happen whenever environmental conditions warrant. Special events of 75 or more people are allowed only at Arcadia, Big River, Diamond Hill and George Washington, are capped at 150 participants, are permitted only between 1 July and 30 September, and are applied for between 1 January and the end of February with a lottery on the first Monday in March. 9
- Two weeks in a state campground, seven nights on the coast
- No person may occupy a campground for more than a continuous two week period, with a seven day minimum break before re-occupying, except at Charlestown Breachway and East Beach, where the maximum stay is seven nights within a three week period. A site must be occupied on the first night of the permit and at least four nights in each week, and failing that is grounds for immediate revocation. Reserved campers check in between one in the afternoon and ten at night and check out by eleven in the morning. Visitors leave campsites by ten at night and quiet hours run to seven in the morning. Beavertail State Park allows no overnight camping at any time. 8
- “Self-contained” has a definition, and it is enforced
- At Charlestown Breachway and East Beach a camping unit must contain manufacturer-installed permanent holding tanks for potable water, grey water and black water so that neither grey nor black water can leak or be dumped, intentionally or otherwise. Aftermarket installations may need documentation from the installer certifying the system meets that standard. A unit found in violation while at the campground has its permit terminated without refund. East Beach adds four-wheel drive and a barrier beach permit, and refuses travel trailers, fifth wheels, tents and pets outright. 11
- A beach vehicle permit is not permission to be on a beach
- The Coastal Resources Management Council states that its permit exists to certify a vehicle can travel off road safely and is carrying safety equipment in case it gets stuck, that access to beach areas is controlled by municipal or state parks rules only, and that the permit "does not guarantee access anywhere". Vehicles are prohibited on dunes or within 75 feet of the dune crest except on trails marked expressly for vehicle use, and prohibited in vegetated areas anywhere on the barrier, whether or not those areas look vegetated to you. Vehicle access to the beach is only through authorised trails. Vehicle access to the salt pond is prohibited; you reach the pond on foot. Parking on the dunes or other vegetated areas at any time means the pass is revoked, and so does parking anywhere but the designated lots and pull-offs on the East Beach sand trail between 1 April and 15 September. 21
- East Beach is day use, and the sand trail still costs beach parking
- East Beach State Beach is a day-use only area. In-season hours run from nine in the morning on weekdays and half past eight at weekends and holidays to six in the evening, and the gates close at sunset whatever the hour on the sign. Vehicles using the sand trail need a barrier beach pass and are charged state beach parking rates to enter, and the campsites on the three-mile barrier can only be reached by four-wheel-drive vehicles. Alcohol, glass, dogs, smoking, RV camping and tent camping are all prohibited on the beach itself. 13
- Orange, from September to February and April again to May
- All users of state management areas and designated undeveloped state parks, hikers and cyclists and horseback riders expressly included, must wear 200 square inches of solid daylight fluorescent orange from the second Saturday in September to the last day of February, and from the third Saturday in April to the last day in May. Five hundred square inches is required of all hunters and other users during shotgun deer season. The parks division adds that the orange must be worn above the waist and be visible in all directions, and that fluorescent camouflage does not meet the requirement. 7
- Three parkways refuse commercial vehicles over two and a half tons
- The parks regulation prohibits commercial vehicles in excess of two and a half tons gross weight on the highway running through Veterans Memorial Parkway in East Providence, Dean Parkway in Cranston and Narragansett Parkway in Warwick, except by official written permission. A heavy plated rig routed through any of those three on a mapping app is being routed onto state park land, not a public through road. 8
- What the council makes you carry on sand
- Every vehicle operated on a beach carries, in good working order: a heavy-duty or military entrenching shovel; a tow rope or chain of fifteen feet with 1,800 pounds load strength, chain size five sixteenths; a jack and a support stand of at least eighteen by eighteen inches of five eighths plywood; street legal tyres with four-ply tread and two-ply sidewalls, with snow and mud tyres not recommended; a spare; a low-pressure gauge reading zero to twenty pounds; a first aid kit; a fire extinguisher; emergency signal devices or a two-way radio; and a flashlight. Maximum speed is ten miles an hour, five approaching anyone on foot, and motorcycles, minibikes, snowmobiles and all-terrain cycles are prohibited from beach use outright. 22
- Beach parking passes, and the season they cover
- Parking passes are required at the eight state beach lots during operational hours from the opening day in May through Labor Day. A season pass is thirty dollars for a resident and sixty for a non-resident, half that for seniors. Daily rates are six dollars weekday and seven at weekends for residents, twelve and fourteen for non-residents, with Misquamicut charged higher. Entrances take cards and tap-to-pay as well as cash, and season passes cannot be bought at the entrance. The state counts more than 400 miles of coastline and eight state beaches on it. 12
- Fire needs a written permit on or next to forest land
- Nobody may burn flammable material on or adjacent to forest land without a written permit from the director of the Department of Environmental Management or an authorised representative, whoever lights a permit fire must totally extinguish it before leaving, and the director may cancel or suspend any or all permits when public necessity requires. The penalty runs from ten to a hundred dollars, or ten to thirty days, or both. On department ground the parks regulation adds that no open fire, charcoal included, may be kindled except in designated areas or with official written permission. 32
- Spring burning hours, 15 March to 15 May
- Burning in rubbish burners, incinerators or outside fireplaces must be attended and must happen before ten in the morning or after five in the afternoon during the period 15 March to 15 May, unless snow covers the ground, rain is falling, or a written permit has been issued. Burning on state property at any time of year, and burning brush piles, grass or debris on or adjacent to forest land, requires a written permit to kindle fire. An open air fire means any fire outdoors or in a structure not completely enclosed by walls and a roof, which takes in charcoal grills and gas stoves. 10
- The governor can close the woods
- When the director of environmental management judges that an unusual forest fire hazard exists, he notifies the governor, who may by proclamation forbid any person from entering forests, woodlands or open lands in any part of the state, and may suspend woods operations and the open seasons for fish, birds and game at the same time. The proclamation takes effect immediately on notice and stays in force until rescinded. Violating it carries up to fifty dollars or ten days. This is Rhode Island’s equivalent of a fire restriction ladder, and it is a single step: open, or closed. 33
- Studs from 15 November, chains when you actually need them
- Tyres on a highway may not carry any block, flange, cleat, spike or other non-rubber protuberance projecting beyond the tread, with three exceptions. Flat-headed studs projecting one sixteenth of an inch or less are permitted from the fifteenth day of November to the first day of April. Farm machinery may use protuberances that will not injure the highway. And tyre chains "of reasonable proportions" are permitted on any vehicle when required for safety because of snow, ice or other conditions tending to cause a vehicle to skid. Rhode Island publishes no requirement to fit chains, only this permission, so there is no chain law to plan around. 31
- Size limits: 102 inches wide, 162 high, 40 feet long
- Total outside width of a vehicle or its load may not exceed 102 inches, excluding safety and non-cargo-carrying appurtenances on motorised campers and camping recreational vehicles, and the fine is a hundred dollars per inch over. Height may not exceed 162 inches, which is thirteen feet six, at five hundred dollars per inch over. Length may not exceed forty feet overall including bumpers, or forty-five feet for a motor bus, motorised camper or camping recreational vehicle, at two hundred dollars per foot over. Measure a tall build before you bring it: the height penalty is the steepest of the three. 29
- Spring weight postings belong to the town, not the state
- Local authorities may, by ordinance or resolution, prohibit vehicles or restrict weight on highways under their own jurisdiction for a total of no more than ninety days in any one calendar year, whenever deterioration, rain, snow or other climatic conditions would otherwise seriously damage the road. The restriction is not effective unless and until signs stating it are erected and maintained at each end of the affected stretch. So a posted road here is a town decision you read off a sign, and there is no statewide spring thaw schedule to consult in advance. 30
- Posted bridges and clearance maps come from the transport department
- The Department of Transportation runs an oversize and overweight division and publishes the reference material a large vehicle needs: a posted bridge list, a posted bridges map, vehicle height clearance maps for the state, a guide to vehicle size and weight limits, and permit types and limits. It also maintains a running list of construction narrowings with maximum widths, which changes constantly, so check it against your own width on the day rather than trusting any figure printed elsewhere. 45
- Bike paths are not roads, and nobody plows them
- Rhode Island has more than sixty miles of off-road bike path, and the transport department states that none of them is plowed or treated for ice, that maintenance responsibilities vary from path to path, and that all motorised vehicles including snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles are prohibited on them. In winter they are open for snowshoeing, walking and cross-country skiing. Several of them run alongside or through the places in this guide, so the distinction matters: a paved corridor through a state park is not a road you may drive. 44
- Block Island has its own statute for small machines
- The General Assembly legislated for the rental of motorised bicycles, motor scooters and motorised tricycles in the single town of New Shoreham, declaring it necessary "to afford protection against the increasing number and severity of accidents involving motorized bicycles, motor scooters and motorized tricycles, the noise, and the traffic congestion that their presence creates within the town". The town council may cap the number of rental licences, cap how many machines a licence holder may rent, set the hours they may be rented, require annual state inspection, and charge a licence fee of up to forty dollars per machine. 27
Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
US Forest Service (USFS)
National Park Service (NPS)
US Fish and Wildlife (USFW)
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR)
Department Of Defense (DOD)
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
Other Federal
State
Local
Alaska Native Lands (Patented or Interim Conveyed)
Alaska Native Allotment
Road
Primitive Road
Road
Primitive Road
Trail
Roads open to all Vehicles, Yearlong
Roads open to all Vehicles, Seasonal
Roads open to highway legal vehicles only, Yearlong
Roads open to highway legal vehicles only, Seasonal
Special Designation, Yearlong
Special Designation, Seasonal
Trails open to all vehicles, Yearlong
Trails open to all vehicles, Seasonal
Trails open to vehicles 50" or less in width, Yearlong
Trails open to vehicles 50" or less in width, Seasonal
Trails open to motorcycles, Yearlong
Trails open to motorcycles, Seasonal
Special Designation, Seasonal
Trails Open to Wheeled Vehicles Only < 50" in Width, Yearlong
Trails Open to Wheeled Vehicles Only < 50" or Less in Width, Seasonal
Wilderness Area
Wilderness Study Area
