If wildlife overpasses could speak: save the best for Idaho’s US-20

For the five deer killed on Idaho’s U.S. 20 in the last 48 hours.

May we drag no more of your family off the asphalt.

The US 20, Yellowstone’s main highway access from Idaho Falls and Salt Lake City, wasn’t built to support Yellowstone’s record number of visitors. Somewhere north of 1.5 million vehicles travel the route each year. And estimates show no signs of slowing down, with 2.5 million vehicles projected for the year 2040. So the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) has proposed an expansion plan to make U.S. 20 wider and faster. Here’s the problem: the road is lethal for wildlife as is, and making it wider and faster only makes it dangerouser and dangerouser. And here’s the problem’s problem: the ITD hopes to solve dangerous wildlife-vehicle collisions without using the solution proven most successful: wildlife overpasses.

If wildlife overpasses could speak to the ITD

In preparation for US 20’s expansive construction plans, engineers proposed five alternative solutions to the problem of wildlife-vehicle collisions. Alternative 2 includes three wildlife overpasses for a four mile stretch along Targhee Pass, and Alternative 3 proposed using a wildlife detection system instead (basically signs that blink when detecting that animals are on the road). The ITD wants to go with the detection systems.

Even though

• Remaining an unproven option, the Federal Highway Administration categorizes these detection systems as “experimental.”
• As one writer has pointed out, “detection systems are less effective than wildlife crossings because they rely on changing driver behavior, vs. keeping animals off the roadway.” The theory goes that when drivers see the sign blinking, they will slow down accordingly.
• In 2017, detection systems near Durango, Colorado were scrapped due to frustratingly expensive maintenance, and the fact that they simply didn’t work. The news report’s headline was “Wildlife detection: System a proven failure on U.S. 160, but so is our unwillingness to slow down.”
• And when detection systems in Florida falsely alerted drivers to animals on the road 90% of the time, said drivers became desensitized to the systems, which resulted in more wildlife-vehicle collisions. The boy who cried wolf became the signs that blinked alligators.

Whereas

• In other mountain states and provinces around Idaho, specifically Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Washington, wildlife overpasses have consistently proven to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions by 83-87%.
• The data is so clear that Utah and Washington have decided to invest in wildlife overpasses to solve their wildlife-vehicle collision problems. Check out a video of a coyote already using a Washington overpass while it is still under construction.
• Wildlife overpasses outside Pinedale, Wyoming have reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by 85%.
• In some places in Colorado, the successful reduction of wildlife collisions even reaches 90%.
• And in 2014, a study in Montana showed that wildlife overpasses also help promote genetically-healthier grizzly bears because populations were not isolated from one another on either side of the busy roadways.

If wildlife overpasses could speak to the islanders of Island Park

• Your Fremont county tax dollars would not be touched if these overpasses were built. Nor would they be used for maintenance. All would be paid for by federal funds made on federal fuel taxes.
• Your property values may go up. With the various overpasses built all over the West, none have shown to hit any property values negatively. In fact, for folks looking to invest in rural property, realtors tend to show that such customers want to do so in places where nature is a high priority and safe roadways exist. So these overpasses may indeed increase property values.
• Easy access to public land would remain the same. The Forest Service, ITD, and Idaho Department of Fish and Game have promised to maintain access to public land, and all necessary access points are built into the wildlife overpass engineering plan.
• The Idaho Department of Fish and Game, at the Yellowstone Biennial Science Conference, presented that 36% of all vehicle accidents on Targhee Pass are due to wildlife collisions. Nationally, only 5% of vehicle accidents are due to such. Since Targhee Pass’s wildlife collisions account for more than seven times the national rate of accidents, Idaho Fish and Game has prioritized Targhee Pass as a top location in need of wildlife overpasses.
• Island Park has a rate four times that of the national average, with 20% of accidents caused by wildlife collisions.
• Island Park and Targhee Pass in particular have such high rates of wildlife collisions because US-20 is the first major roadway that Yellowstone’s western migrating animals have to cross. The Idaho Fish and Game acknowledge both that the migration of elk, moose, and deer across US-20 is among the most important migrations in the state, and that the US-20 is the largest threat to this biannual migration.
• In fact, this migration includes the largest known migrating group of moose in North America.
• For these reasons, the Caribou-Targhee National Forest Service, Idaho Fish and Game, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Idaho Wildlife Federation, Future West, Cinnabar Foundation, Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, Idaho Conservation League, and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative all support Alternative 2 to build wildlife overpasses.

If wildlife overpasses could speak to the fiscally conservative

• Wildlife detection systems, while slightly cheaper initially, have much higher maintenance costs and only last about ten years.
• Whereas wildlife overpasses have been proven to be more successful in the long run, require less maintenance, and last twenty-five years. And that twenty-five-year mark is only for fence repairs and associated structural features. The overpass itself would last seventy-five years.
• And worst of all, with Alternative 3, ITD plans on building detection systems without any wildlife fences. Wildlife detection systems without fences are the least effective of all detection systems in place.
• And ITD, when giving reason to support detection systems, referenced systems in Switzerland that were turned off during the day due to so many false alerts.
• So ITD wants to go with a less effective system that will be more expensive to maintain long term, will not last half as long, and potentially only function during the night.
• What’s more, wildlife overpasses would only account for 10% of the overall project cost. And when they are built with new road construction, the Federal Highway Administration foots 93% of the bill (the rest paid by federal funds described above). So costs are kept to a minimum when we choose to build wildlife overpasses as a part of highway modernization projects.

If wildlife overpasses could speak to car insurance agents

• In fifteen years, wildlife-vehicle collisions have increased 50%.
• These collisions cause damages north of 8 billion dollars.
• The average wildlife collision costs car insurers 2,800 dollars.
• With how effective wildlife overpasses are, if we placed them at hot spots for collisions nationwide, they would save car insurers upward to 6.5 billion dollars each year.
• Can someone please explain to me why car insurance companies are not wildlife overpass lobbyists?

If wildlife overpasses could speak to those who tell their loved ones to travel safely

• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that at least 200 human lives are lost each year in wildlife-related crashes.
• The bigger the animal, the more life-threatening the crash. And considering the above information about migrations of deer, elk, and moose across US-20, we are most likely going to hit a large animal in such an event.
• If we look at the reported animal collisions for the previous year, about 200 large mammals (moose, elk, deer) were killed. And recently, drivers have reported killing two grizzly bears, one bison, two mountain lions, and two wolves.
• And let’s keep in mind that these collisions only represent those that are reported. They in no way represent all of the animals hit in dangerous collisions.

But wildlife overpasses need us to speak up by February 1st

• We can voice our concern with ITD’s preference for detection systems. They are currently accepting public comments until the end of the day tomorrow, February 1st.
• Please feel free to use any of the points above and put them in your words in an email detailing why you would rather have the ITD supporting Alternative 2’s wildlife overpass plan, and send your email to targheepass@langdongroupinc.com.