The ROAD feature class stores the spatial location and attributes of the State of Washington, Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) forest roads and of other DNR, public and selected private roads in the state. Other elements of the transportation network such as ferries, railroads, and trails are not included. Updating and editing efforts are primarily focused on roads in DNR managed state lands, adjunct roads or in areas that are covered by a published map that is undergoing an update. The ROAD layer includes basic attributes that are linked to the intersection-based road segments. These attributes store information about route id, road name, road number, control, responsibility, status, access, surface, classification, and abandonment.

The original road lines were entered primarily by digitizing from paper maps, scanning by machine, or derived stereoscopically from black and white photo imagery. They are currently updated and corrected as needed, in most cases using on-line, geo-referenced orthophotography, stereo color imagery, GPS or field survey.

This layer is used to help in road infrastructure planning and maintenance, Forest Practices and Road Maintenance and Abandonment Planning (RMAP) compliance reporting, forest management, timber sales planning, and is the basis for the ROAD_ROUTE_FT layer and associated event tables that currently record these maintenance activities and road easements. It is widely used as a layer in cartographic presentations and published maps.