Road Ecology: Wildlife Habitat and Highway Design

High-speed rail may get the flashy headlines, but most U.S. transportation dollars go to building, widening and maintaining roads. President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal called for substantially increased spending on rail and public transit, but nonetheless allocates 55 percent of transportation funds to the Federal Highway Administration. The United States adds 32,000 lane miles annually to the 4 million miles of public roads already crisscrossing the country. For more than a century, we have allowed expressways, arterials and rural roads to define our landscapes without seriously considering how we might redefine the road. Engineers have rarely attempted to incorporate ecological functions, let alone artistry, into a design practice historically dominated by concerns for speed and efficiency. 1