61–70 of 73 posts
What a colossal waste of resources.
The problem is that Canada chose to route their largest national highway, Trans-Canada Highway 1, right through a National Park. This is just mitigating the downsides of that decision.
It's not like someone said "Hey, that's a nice national park, let's run a road right through it."
People in cities need something similar. It would be hugely beneficial to have a bustling business district lined up on the left and right side of urban freeway crossings.
This is the entire point of projects to put freeways in tunnels.
But due to the currently high cost of construction projects, there is a lot of infrastructure that must be augmented rather than replaced.
I have a vision, inspired by this problem, where every major highway is a "forested overpass". Instead of bisecting the top layer with roads and fences, build all major roads in tunnels, and bring the recovered surface area back to it's original state for all to enjoy. Availability of suitable habitat for native species is only getting worse. If we blindly follow the path we are on, confrontation and compromise are i…
Someone proposes a cost effective solution then someone else feels the need to take the solution to a limit. "Just put everything underground" How about we try the cheaper solution first then talk about burying highways at a later date?
http://www.ewao.com/a/1-scientists-prove-our-dna-has-telepat... http://www.ewao.com/a/1-11-reasons-why-the-hollow-earth-actu...
You see a similar idea quite often on the north shore of the St. Lawrence in Quebec. Usually they are underpasses, though, and usually combined with a 8-10', very sturdy fence system to funnel the animals into these crossing points and prevent them crossing the highway. Honestly, I think they are more motivated by preventing human fatalities from moose-vehicle collisions, which are exceptionally deadly, primarily, wi…
But I've heard that some species don't like to go through tunnels, because predators might lurk in the dark corners (or something like that). So the architecture will have to adapt to the species it is designed for.
In Australia, we have a similar bridge but on a much simpler scale - a rope bridge that spans the Hume highway (for animals that need a continuous bridge). For our native animals that glide (but can't fly), poles spaced 30m or so accomplish the same goal. http://theconversation.com/mysterious-poles-make-road-crossi...
IIRC I heard that some kiwis actively encourage drivers to run over anything that ventures onto the road, since any medium-sized animal that doesn't have wings is an invasive species in New Zealand. Not sure if it was a joke.
I have a vision, inspired by this problem, where every major highway is a "forested overpass". Instead of bisecting the top layer with roads and fences, build all major roads in tunnels, and bring the recovered surface area back to it's original state for all to enjoy. Availability of suitable habitat for native species is only getting worse. If we blindly follow the path we are on, confrontation and compromise are i…
Or robotic vehicles will all slow down as animals approach a highway, while other smaller robots (maybe drones) herd them across with sound effects.
One way or another, this problem will be solved. How all these technologies will evolve and which ones will solve it first is anybody's guess.
https://www.codot.gov/projects/sh9wildlife
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/09/21/cdot-wildlife-overpass...
This stretch of highway is so populated with wildlife that we would often see a handful of new unfortunate strikes every morning, and most everyone around had a story of a near miss or a hit. Underpasses and overpasses are being utilized and a fence runs along both sides to funnel the animals to them.
A fence was put in place along I-70 near us and has been rather effective but there are no underpasses and no overpasses in that implementation. In our area, the wildlife need to travel to the Blue River on one side of the highway for water and back up the mountains on the other side of the highway to graze (and give birth, etc.)
Money was raised not only from government sources but from a local resident pledge drive as well as a very gracious benefactor who owns land in the affected area.