Office of Planning, Environment, & Realty (HEP)
Planning • Environment • Real Estate
When standard solutions to keeping cliff swallows off bridge-construction sites could not be installed on a bridge in Fresno County, California, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) staff used their ingenuity and some hardware items on hand to protect the migrating birds and keep the State Route 41 Overpass project moving. Bridge crews used contact cement to attach clear vinyl plastic sheeting to the bridge columns to form a series of temporary barriers. Bridge vents were blocked using hardware cloth, successfully excluding swallows without disturbing air-flow. The plastic sheeting solution cost Caltrans only $2,000 to buy and install.
"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 build bat roosts in pre-fab bridge concrete or extend the right-of-way fence to create elkproof fencing," says April Marchese, Director of FHWA's Office of Natural and Human Environment. "Simple measures like these link habitats, reduce roadkill, and save taxpayer dollars."
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."
