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Keeping It Simple:
Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

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Higher bridge rails mean safer flying for purple martins

Like the cliff swallows in the song "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano," graceful purple martins return every spring to favorite, familiar places. They roost on steel beams under bridges such as the US 190 Bridge over Trinity River in Polk County, Texas. In the past, as the birds flew up and over this bridge, many cleared the bridge rail only to be hit by oncoming traffic. Not anymore. The Texas Department of Transportation added a 6-foot-high chain link fence to the top of the bridge rail on both sides of the bridge. Thanks to this simple solution, the bridge's purple martins now fly high and safe.

Doing the right thing - simply

"Keeping it simple" is more than a concept. It's a commitment.

It means using simple solutions when simple solutions will work.

It involves going beyond "compliance" to identify easy ways of helping wildlife and fish.

It means doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do and because one has an opportunity to do it.

"We can install ledges in culverts or wood-top rails on deer fences while at the same time pursuing programmatic, region-wide solutions to transportation and wildlife challenges," says FHWA Administrator Rick Capka.

This website highlights more than 100 simple, successful projects from all 50 states and beyond. Each is "easy." Most are low- or no-cost. All benefit wildlife, fish, or their habitats.

Many projects were completed only once - to protect specific species in specific environmental conditions. Others have been repeated numerous times and have become "routine."

Some projects are undertaken regularly because research has proven them effective. Others are new innovations, "best practices," or state-of-the-art strategies.

Some projects - for example, modifying mowing cycles and installing oversized culverts in streams - are common to a large number of states. Others represent a simple solution to a site-specific environmental challenge.

We invite you to explore them all. We encourage you to find out for yourselves, through this website, how transportation professionals are working with others to do the right thing for wildlife and--wherever possible--to do it "simply."