How Did the Meadow Vole Cross the Road? Designing travel routes for wildlife

Environmentalists, biologists, wildlife advocates, and even ski clubs formed the I-90 Wildlife Bridges Coalition to push for wildlife crossings to be a part of a massive construction project on Washington’s heavily trafficked Snoqualmie Pass. The Department of Transportation took notice. It's working with other government agencies and wildlife experts to install bridges and tunnels designed for animals of all sizes to safely cross the road.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes worked to design and implement 42 animal crossings along 56 miles of Highway 93 to reduce wild animal collisions. An average of over 22,500 animal crosses happen per year at just 29 of the structures and collisions have reduced by 71%.

Snowsheds are just one tool in Canada’s arsenal to combat the impacts avalanches can have on their complex road systems. Snowsheds are aboveground tunnels where snow can travel over it and into the river, thereby reducing the number of road closures to cleanup the aftermath and allowing thousands of drivers to continue on their journeys. This idea is being explored by state officials in Wyoming as a way to improve their avalanche-mitigation tactics.

A failed bridge construction project in the 1960s in Wyoming to mitigate the impacts of avalanches inspired Washington state to complete a similar project fifty years later. The project included an elevated bridge that allows snow from slide paths to pass beneath the roadway, which ends up saving losses of economic activity due to road closures. While the construction can be expensive, Wyoming is looking to see if a similar solution can be applied to their own mountain passes.

Eastern Washington University recently built the first tall wood office building in the state joining hundreds of other large “mass-timber” projects in the United States. This growing industry constructs panels, beams, and columns from trees that need to be thinned to curb wildfires in forests. While wood buildings can be more expensive to build than ones constructed from concrete and steel, environmentalists are on board because wood can store carbon, which can help offset greenhouse gas emissions.

A persistent problem in Massachusetts of trucks going through tunnels or underpasses that are too low for safe clearance has prompted officials to look to Sydney, Australia for a possible solution. Officials in that city worked with a private company to develop a system where if a truck is too tall, it triggers a warning so officials can activate a sheet of water at the tunnel entrance upon which is projected the holographic image of a giant red Stop sign. It's proven successful in stopping drivers before they enter the tunnel.

Even with such increasingly popular trends as reusable grocery bags and biodegradable food containers, 70% of plastic products end up in landfills; but with the help of a local start-up, MacRebur, several townships in Scotland are cutting back on this quantity while simultaneously servicing and improving the quality of their transportation networks.

According to the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission, there are fewer than 180 panthers left in the state due to high rates of animal-vehicle collision. Now, the state is trying to prevent further harming the species by introducing specially designed technology, including highway underpasses and roadside animal detection systems.

To rebuild Gaza, Green Cake manufactures construction blocks out of locally-available ash and rubble. It’s a low-cost and reliable alternative to importing supplies from Israel.

When Gwadar’s dams ran dry in May 2017, the government began trucking in water. But the solution is costly, the water isn’t clean, and the trucking companies protested in November, claiming they weren’t paid on time. Desalination is an alternative, but it’s expensive too and fatal design flaws have crippled prior attempts at desalination in the province.