I can't really know what people think is or isn't a road but these are objectively roads and I think you are understating the extent to which resource extraction activities use these roads today, and the degree to which any road, no matter how much or little used, alters the ecosystem through which it passes.
The point is that humans have touched it. There’s a perception there’s large segments of the American West and Midwest that haven’t been touched. Which is what they’re describing. Almost every place, at one point or another was close to the road. When we’ve only had cars for the last 100 or so, that’s quite a statement.
A forestry or old logging road that hasn’t been used in 50 years doesn’t come to mind.