2003 Environmental Excellence Awards

Iowa's Living Roadways Community Visioning Program and Iowa's Living Roadways Project

Through a unique private-public partnership, Iowa's Living Roadways Program addresses the concerns of small towns impacted by highway improvement projects. The limited amount of resources available to these communities makes it difficult to access transportation enhancement funding when they are competing with larger communities. And when small communities do receive funding, it is often difficult to navigate the required permitting and implementation processes. The Iowa Living Roadways program consists of two components - Visioning and Projects. Community Visioning is a process that encourages creative and strategic thinking about landscape improvements along transportation corridors. The Projects component helps communities carry out their Visioning plans by providing funds for implementation of locally led enhancement projects. Grants are provided for landscape projects that use primarily native trees, grasses and wildflowers. Volunteers, representing a cross-section of their community, work together to beautify entranceways, roadsides, recreational trails, and other highly visible areas. Since 1996, 79 communities have participated in the Visioning program and 184 projects have been funded in 138 communities. The strength of the Living Roadways Program is that it seeks to celebrate the unique character, history, and local ecosystem of each community.