Previously, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) co-sponsored the International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition to engage the best and most innovative international, interdisciplinary design teams—comprised of landscape architects, engineers, ecologists, and other experts—to create the next generation of wildlife overpasses for North America’s roadways. In doing so, the competition raised national and international awareness around solutions that reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions, improve wildlife protection and maintain habitat connectivity while promoting context-sensitive and compelling design solutions for safe, efficient, cost-effective, and ecologically responsive wildlife crossings.  The FHWA followed this with additional sponsorship of three phased effort spearheaded by the WTI and the Animal Road Crossing (ARC) Partnership under ARC Wildlife Crossing Structures Initiatives to broaden transportation officials’ awareness of the problems and solutions that exist in three initiative areas titled Innovate, Educate, and Advocate.

This project consists of follow-up tasks to provide technical support to FHWA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on wildlife crossing structures and other road ecology issues.  These tasks include a development of a wildlife crossings technical and strategy workshop and white paper, coordination of a wildlife overpass design parameters workshop and technical brief, and provision of road ecology technical expertise through site visits USFWS lands.