8 ms·

Groundbreaking set for bridge billed as world's largest wildlife crossing

78 points by opisthenar84 5y ago

bmitc 5y ago
I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but I feel this is a typical human development. In that, these designs should have been common, if not required, from the very beginning, but here we are patting ourselves on the back doing it almost decades too late. It’s great that it’s happening though for sure.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  I don't know if that is strictly pessimism. It is probably self defeating though. Sally has been on a diet for two weeks. Already, she looks visibly better. Her face is less puffy, complection has improved, etc. She feels more energetic. "You see! I told you. Diet is not that hard. You look so much better. It's such a pity that you spent your twenties being a fat slob." A pat on the back is productive. The above is counterproductive.
  - bmitc 5y ago
    I feel the analogy isn't quite accurate. What you've described is almost strictly a personal matter. Building structures that decimate animal populations and ecosystems is an entirely different matter. It's just at some point, we gotta question our ability and willingness to double down on narcissism. We build structures and technology that do horrible things to the environment for our own "good" or preference, and then we pat ourselves on the back when we do something about reducing the effects, usually decades later (and usually when it starts to affect us). The lesson learned is that we have got to start asking ourselves about downstream effects of our technology, rather than simply stopping once technology solves the narrow problem it was designed for. As I mentioned, I do think it's great that these natural bridges are becoming more popular. I sincerely feel the separation we've done to animal populations every time I drive on highways and roads, especially when I see animals that have been killed by cars. The fact that some animals have been able to survive amongst destruction of their habitat is quite amazing. Obviously, many were not able to adapt due to their evolutionary path.
    - dalbasal 5y ago
      No analogy is perfect. That said. I think there's a pseudo-principle in here someplace. Behind that bridge are people, and work those people did. Someone fought for budgets. Someone did wildlife research. Someone overcame planning difficulties. Politicians, scientists, activists, etc. The sentiments you expressed are negative reinforcers. If enough voices sound like yours, that leads to doing less. I do think that it's a self defeating pattern in personal, social and public realms. Do something good = trivialise it; shoulda done more, earlier. You sick. We suck. Negative reinforcement. Do something bad = comfortable, instinctive negativity. Of course we did bad. We suck. All is as it should be. It's a pattern of thought and communication that promotes and enables stagnation, and wallowing in bad places.
      - bmitc 5y ago
        But some analogies aren't relevant. :) Taking a retrospective look could in fact be argued to be optimistic. It means we can learn from our past mistakes and do better in the future. In other words, take the idea that we have the capacity to change for the better and not the capacity to get worse. I view the "whelp, this is the best we could do" approach to be pessimistic. A retrospective isn't trivializing anything. It should be: we did something bad, we've corrected for it, don't over congratulate and act like our hands are fully clean, ask ourselves how we can prevent this in the future in other endeavors. We will never be proactive problem solvers of downstream problems created by our immediate solutions as a species if we don't address these ideas and perspectives. We'll just keep rinsing and repeating. Do you view team retrospectives in industry as "negative reinforcers"? > If enough voices sound like yours, that leads to doing less. I highly disagree because you seem to continue to be misinterpreting the "voicing". It isn't about being negative. It's about being honest. Anyway, this is gone down a diversion. Just trying to provide a perspective of reframing in that we have the capacity, at least I hope we do, to prevent the need for these scrambles in the future. For the third time, it's really great this is being done and hopefully propagates to other areas that likely desperately need them. Edit: It should be clear, but I'm referring to we as a collective. And it's almost always more expensive and difficult to retroactively fix things. I'm saying take this good development, which it is, and proactively apply its ideas to new projects.
- sva_ 5y ago
  I know that these are common in Germany, going over the Autobahn (ableit smaller bridges), such as: 52.1347152, 8.1685640
  - cheschire 5y ago
    I always wondered what the justification for something like this[0] was. It's not really connecting two natural areas, and seems like with all the internal infrastructure like alarm systems, lighting, and fans that it would be wildly more expensive than just building the bridges and overpasses. 0: 49.972706, 8.272086
- dtgriscom 5y ago
  Judging our past selves by what we know now isn't useful.
Animats 5y ago
- greggsy 5y ago
  Is this comment really necessary?
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    I found the link he posted interesting, did a little research, and it's true. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-immigration-sign-20180210-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-immigration-sign-2... so yes, that comment was true and factual, not inflammatory, and easily seen as topical in a parallel sense to this wildlife crossing bridge. Some would suggest that we should expend more effort to save human lives than animal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_sign I'm glad I read it, and I'm better informed now. Your comment, on the other hand...
    - a_t48 5y ago
      Immigration is a touchy subject.
    - aaron695 5y ago
    - qwertox 5y ago
      It's off topic. "Some would suggest [...]", where those "some" are those with a political agenda.
na85 5y ago
Nice to see. In Canada we've had these in Alberta and BC along certain highways for at least a few decades. Up here they pair them with extensive roadside fences and my understanding is they're extremely effective at reducing wildlife collisions. Needless to say, hitting a moose at highway speeds ends poorly not just for the moose but for the occupants of the vehicle as well.
- labster 5y ago
  It’s a different problem in SoCal — there aren’t meese or hardly any large animals to speak of. It’s to try and stitch together zones that are too small to support sufficient genetic diversity for land predators. The car hits are few and far between, so it’s a minor safety issue, but every animal struck is an ecological disaster. The 101 is already extensively fenced for human safety.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Meese? Mice? Mouse? The plural of moose is moose. English sure is weird.
    - kayodelycaon 5y ago
      When I lived in Wisconsin, a group of moose were frequently (and humorously) referred to as meese. We all knew the correct pluralization, which is why using the wrong one was funny. The fact that it annoyed sticklers to proper form was just icing on the cake.
      - earleybird 5y ago
        "If the plural of goose is geese, is the plural of moose, meese?"
        labster 5y ago
        If the singular of mice is mouse, what the deuce is the singular of dice?
a1445c8b 5y ago
I am 100% for projects like this. My question is partly just out of curiosity and partly (maybe) because the realities of capitalism has made me skeptical of what look to be purely altruistic initiatives. Apart from the animals, the motorists, and the contractors who will build this, who else stands to gain? Someone must be expecting some huge savings or returns considering the $90 million price tag, right? Other than that, this news gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
- ceeplusplus 5y ago
  > who else stands to gain The politicians who ran on being "green" and want to "save" the climate. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure the rest of us who are sane would rather have more public transit or more lanes on the highway with that 90 million.
  - xg15 5y ago
    Even more lanes? The highway already has 10 lanes.
  - bmitc 5y ago
    More lanes on highways has been proven to at best have no effect on traffic and at worst just make traffic worse overall.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      No it hasn’t. “Induced demand” is an idiotic phrase for a standard supply and demand curve where the price in this case is just time spent on the road. There is a limited number of people who want to drive on the road at a particular time and if you build to that, there will be no more demand. If you’re not convinced, just look at the empty highways at night. “Building a hospital in our town just caused more hospital visits. Stop building hospitals!”
      - scrose 5y ago
        > “Building a hospital in our town just caused more hospital visits. Stop building hospitals!” People don’t walk into hospitals in 100+ square foot bubble suits for fun > There is a limited number of people who want to drive on the road at a particular time and if you build to that, there will be no more demand. If you’re not convinced, just look at the empty highways at night. Do you realize you just described the importance of recognizing induced demand? If you just ‘build roads to capacity’(and what even is ‘capacity? 0 traffic?), you end up with ‘cities’ that are just miles of parking lots with 10+ parking spaces for every person. You end up with highways that cost literally billions to build, billions to maintain and billions to extend every few years as the new peak amount of cars gets higher.
disillusioned 5y ago
"Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House, had a big block of cheese..."
- acchow 5y ago
  This was the racist maps episode, right?
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Yes! I miss that show. Really could use the optimism.
    - dtgriscom 5y ago
      I loved the first few seasons, but now it seems like such a liberal wet dream.
      - dillondoyle 5y ago
        how? when re watching it does not feel liberal to me. In fact they celebrate this fake moderation and cooperation that doesn't exist (scotus episode). and not very liberal socially. the way they treat lgbtq issues is an example that stands out to me from how far we have evolved in 15 years or whatever
- lmedina 5y ago
  RIP Pluie
jmole 5y ago
no pictures in the article, weird. https://www.google.com/search?q=Wallis+Annenberg+Wildlife+Crossing&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=Wallis+Annenberg+Wildlife+Cr...
- bmitc 5y ago
  There is indeed a picture, which is a still from the video in the article, and in fact, the still from the video and the video and article are in the top results from your link.
londons_explore 5y ago
Get tunnelling cheap and efficient, and all future roads can be fully underground. Then we can leave the surface space for more important things, like natural spaces and humans.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  You make tunneling cheap and easy.
dalbasal 5y ago
I'm curious to hear how these bridges end up affecting wildlife behaviour once everything matures in. Is the bridge itself territory for any territorial animals? Is it a dangerous bottleneck, where predators have an upper hand? Etc. Narrow passages between large habitat areas exist in nature, but they're quite rare.
- herodoturtle 5y ago
  South African here. We see this sort of thing a lot in our many national parks (namely terrain bottlenecks, particularly around watering holes). You're quite right about territorial and / or predatory animals exploiting these. What helps is to keep bush trimmed and to eliminate any dense foliage. So long as there's clear visibility at and around said bottlenecks, it tends to reduce (but not completely eradicate) the tendency for hunts.
  - ourmandave 5y ago
    In NJ they have two wildlife crossings over the roadway next to a wildlife refugee where they also built a huge retaining wall. They look like county road crossings over the interstate but are completely overgrown with trees and bushes. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wildlife-crossings-creatu_b_10020252 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wildlife-crossings-creatu_b_1...
omneity 5y ago
I don’t usually watch videos on news articles, but I was surprised by how concise yet informative this one was. I learned everything I wanted to know about this story in 20 seconds. Impressive.
globular-toast 5y ago
I had trouble parsing the headline and first sentence of this article. > Groundbreaking set for bridge billed... And > Groundbreaking is set for next month... It only made sense once I listened to the video: > The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for next month... Ohhh.. "groundbreaking" is used as a noun. I would write that as "ground breaking". "Groundbreaking" is an adjective. In the UK we have bat bridges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bridge
- banannaise 5y ago
  This is what's called a garden-path sentence! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
spaetzleesser 5y ago
This is great. The only thing that bothers me is the price tag. Seems the US is either neglecting infrastructure or building in super expensive ways. They should have looked into way cheaper approaches that can actually be deployed on larger scale without breaking the bank.
MikeKusold 5y ago
Colorado has a bunch of these, albeit on a smaller scale. Colorado Parks & Wildlife released a study on the effectiveness of these. https://cpw.state.co.us/hwy9 https://cpw.state.co.us/hwy9 > The research documented 112,678 mule deer successful passages through or over the seven crossing structures. Combined with an overall success rate of 96% of mule deer utilizing the structures, these results indicate that the project has been highly effective in accommodating mule deer movement.

78 points by opisthenar84 5y ago

I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but I feel this is a typical human development. In that, these designs should have been common, if not required, from the very beginning, but here we are patting ourselves on the back doing it almost decades too late. It’s great that it’s happening though for sure.

dalbasal 5y ago
I don't know if that is strictly pessimism. It is probably self defeating though. Sally has been on a diet for two weeks. Already, she looks visibly better. Her face is less puffy, complection has improved, etc. She feels more energetic. "You see! I told you. Diet is not that hard. You look so much better. It's such a pity that you spent your twenties being a fat slob." A pat on the back is productive. The above is counterproductive.
- bmitc 5y ago
  I feel the analogy isn't quite accurate. What you've described is almost strictly a personal matter. Building structures that decimate animal populations and ecosystems is an entirely different matter. It's just at some point, we gotta question our ability and willingness to double down on narcissism. We build structures and technology that do horrible things to the environment for our own "good" or preference, and then we pat ourselves on the back when we do something about reducing the effects, usually decades later (and usually when it starts to affect us). The lesson learned is that we have got to start asking ourselves about downstream effects of our technology, rather than simply stopping once technology solves the narrow problem it was designed for. As I mentioned, I do think it's great that these natural bridges are becoming more popular. I sincerely feel the separation we've done to animal populations every time I drive on highways and roads, especially when I see animals that have been killed by cars. The fact that some animals have been able to survive amongst destruction of their habitat is quite amazing. Obviously, many were not able to adapt due to their evolutionary path.
  - dalbasal 5y ago
    No analogy is perfect. That said. I think there's a pseudo-principle in here someplace. Behind that bridge are people, and work those people did. Someone fought for budgets. Someone did wildlife research. Someone overcame planning difficulties. Politicians, scientists, activists, etc. The sentiments you expressed are negative reinforcers. If enough voices sound like yours, that leads to doing less. I do think that it's a self defeating pattern in personal, social and public realms. Do something good = trivialise it; shoulda done more, earlier. You sick. We suck. Negative reinforcement. Do something bad = comfortable, instinctive negativity. Of course we did bad. We suck. All is as it should be. It's a pattern of thought and communication that promotes and enables stagnation, and wallowing in bad places.
    - bmitc 5y ago
      But some analogies aren't relevant. :) Taking a retrospective look could in fact be argued to be optimistic. It means we can learn from our past mistakes and do better in the future. In other words, take the idea that we have the capacity to change for the better and not the capacity to get worse. I view the "whelp, this is the best we could do" approach to be pessimistic. A retrospective isn't trivializing anything. It should be: we did something bad, we've corrected for it, don't over congratulate and act like our hands are fully clean, ask ourselves how we can prevent this in the future in other endeavors. We will never be proactive problem solvers of downstream problems created by our immediate solutions as a species if we don't address these ideas and perspectives. We'll just keep rinsing and repeating. Do you view team retrospectives in industry as "negative reinforcers"? > If enough voices sound like yours, that leads to doing less. I highly disagree because you seem to continue to be misinterpreting the "voicing". It isn't about being negative. It's about being honest. Anyway, this is gone down a diversion. Just trying to provide a perspective of reframing in that we have the capacity, at least I hope we do, to prevent the need for these scrambles in the future. For the third time, it's really great this is being done and hopefully propagates to other areas that likely desperately need them. Edit: It should be clear, but I'm referring to we as a collective. And it's almost always more expensive and difficult to retroactively fix things. I'm saying take this good development, which it is, and proactively apply its ideas to new projects.
sva_ 5y ago
I know that these are common in Germany, going over the Autobahn (ableit smaller bridges), such as: 52.1347152, 8.1685640
- cheschire 5y ago
  I always wondered what the justification for something like this[0] was. It's not really connecting two natural areas, and seems like with all the internal infrastructure like alarm systems, lighting, and fans that it would be wildly more expensive than just building the bridges and overpasses. 0: 49.972706, 8.272086
dtgriscom 5y ago
Judging our past selves by what we know now isn't useful.

Animats 5y ago

greggsy 5y ago
Is this comment really necessary?
- fsckboy 5y ago
  I found the link he posted interesting, did a little research, and it's true. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-immigration-sign-20180210-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-immigration-sign-2... so yes, that comment was true and factual, not inflammatory, and easily seen as topical in a parallel sense to this wildlife crossing bridge. Some would suggest that we should expend more effort to save human lives than animal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_sign I'm glad I read it, and I'm better informed now. Your comment, on the other hand...
  - a_t48 5y ago
    Immigration is a touchy subject.
  - aaron695 5y ago
  - qwertox 5y ago
    It's off topic. "Some would suggest [...]", where those "some" are those with a political agenda.

na85 5y ago

Nice to see. In Canada we've had these in Alberta and BC along certain highways for at least a few decades. Up here they pair them with extensive roadside fences and my understanding is they're extremely effective at reducing wildlife collisions. Needless to say, hitting a moose at highway speeds ends poorly not just for the moose but for the occupants of the vehicle as well.

labster 5y ago
It’s a different problem in SoCal — there aren’t meese or hardly any large animals to speak of. It’s to try and stitch together zones that are too small to support sufficient genetic diversity for land predators. The car hits are few and far between, so it’s a minor safety issue, but every animal struck is an ecological disaster. The 101 is already extensively fenced for human safety.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Meese? Mice? Mouse? The plural of moose is moose. English sure is weird.
  - kayodelycaon 5y ago
    When I lived in Wisconsin, a group of moose were frequently (and humorously) referred to as meese. We all knew the correct pluralization, which is why using the wrong one was funny. The fact that it annoyed sticklers to proper form was just icing on the cake.
    - earleybird 5y ago
      "If the plural of goose is geese, is the plural of moose, meese?"
      - labster 5y ago
        If the singular of mice is mouse, what the deuce is the singular of dice?

a1445c8b 5y ago

I am 100% for projects like this. My question is partly just out of curiosity and partly (maybe) because the realities of capitalism has made me skeptical of what look to be purely altruistic initiatives. Apart from the animals, the motorists, and the contractors who will build this, who else stands to gain? Someone must be expecting some huge savings or returns considering the $90 million price tag, right? Other than that, this news gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

ceeplusplus 5y ago
> who else stands to gain The politicians who ran on being "green" and want to "save" the climate. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure the rest of us who are sane would rather have more public transit or more lanes on the highway with that 90 million.
- xg15 5y ago
  Even more lanes? The highway already has 10 lanes.
- bmitc 5y ago
  More lanes on highways has been proven to at best have no effect on traffic and at worst just make traffic worse overall.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    No it hasn’t. “Induced demand” is an idiotic phrase for a standard supply and demand curve where the price in this case is just time spent on the road. There is a limited number of people who want to drive on the road at a particular time and if you build to that, there will be no more demand. If you’re not convinced, just look at the empty highways at night. “Building a hospital in our town just caused more hospital visits. Stop building hospitals!”
    - scrose 5y ago
      > “Building a hospital in our town just caused more hospital visits. Stop building hospitals!” People don’t walk into hospitals in 100+ square foot bubble suits for fun > There is a limited number of people who want to drive on the road at a particular time and if you build to that, there will be no more demand. If you’re not convinced, just look at the empty highways at night. Do you realize you just described the importance of recognizing induced demand? If you just ‘build roads to capacity’(and what even is ‘capacity? 0 traffic?), you end up with ‘cities’ that are just miles of parking lots with 10+ parking spaces for every person. You end up with highways that cost literally billions to build, billions to maintain and billions to extend every few years as the new peak amount of cars gets higher.

disillusioned 5y ago

"Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House, had a big block of cheese..."

acchow 5y ago
This was the racist maps episode, right?
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  Yes! I miss that show. Really could use the optimism.
  - dtgriscom 5y ago
    I loved the first few seasons, but now it seems like such a liberal wet dream.
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      how? when re watching it does not feel liberal to me. In fact they celebrate this fake moderation and cooperation that doesn't exist (scotus episode). and not very liberal socially. the way they treat lgbtq issues is an example that stands out to me from how far we have evolved in 15 years or whatever
lmedina 5y ago
RIP Pluie

jmole 5y ago

no pictures in the article, weird. https://www.google.com/search?q=Wallis+Annenberg+Wildlife+Crossing&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=Wallis+Annenberg+Wildlife+Cr...

bmitc 5y ago
There is indeed a picture, which is a still from the video in the article, and in fact, the still from the video and the video and article are in the top results from your link.

londons_explore 5y ago

Get tunnelling cheap and efficient, and all future roads can be fully underground. Then we can leave the surface space for more important things, like natural spaces and humans.

dalbasal 5y ago
You make tunneling cheap and easy.

dalbasal 5y ago

I'm curious to hear how these bridges end up affecting wildlife behaviour once everything matures in. Is the bridge itself territory for any territorial animals? Is it a dangerous bottleneck, where predators have an upper hand? Etc. Narrow passages between large habitat areas exist in nature, but they're quite rare.

herodoturtle 5y ago
South African here. We see this sort of thing a lot in our many national parks (namely terrain bottlenecks, particularly around watering holes). You're quite right about territorial and / or predatory animals exploiting these. What helps is to keep bush trimmed and to eliminate any dense foliage. So long as there's clear visibility at and around said bottlenecks, it tends to reduce (but not completely eradicate) the tendency for hunts.
- ourmandave 5y ago
  In NJ they have two wildlife crossings over the roadway next to a wildlife refugee where they also built a huge retaining wall. They look like county road crossings over the interstate but are completely overgrown with trees and bushes. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wildlife-crossings-creatu_b_10020252 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wildlife-crossings-creatu_b_1...

omneity 5y ago

I don’t usually watch videos on news articles, but I was surprised by how concise yet informative this one was. I learned everything I wanted to know about this story in 20 seconds. Impressive.

globular-toast 5y ago

I had trouble parsing the headline and first sentence of this article. > Groundbreaking set for bridge billed... And > Groundbreaking is set for next month... It only made sense once I listened to the video: > The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for next month... Ohhh.. "groundbreaking" is used as a noun. I would write that as "ground breaking". "Groundbreaking" is an adjective. In the UK we have bat bridges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bridge

banannaise 5y ago
This is what's called a garden-path sentence! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

spaetzleesser 5y ago

This is great. The only thing that bothers me is the price tag. Seems the US is either neglecting infrastructure or building in super expensive ways. They should have looked into way cheaper approaches that can actually be deployed on larger scale without breaking the bank.

MikeKusold 5y ago

Colorado has a bunch of these, albeit on a smaller scale. Colorado Parks & Wildlife released a study on the effectiveness of these. https://cpw.state.co.us/hwy9 https://cpw.state.co.us/hwy9 > The research documented 112,678 mule deer successful passages through or over the seven crossing structures. Combined with an overall success rate of 96% of mule deer utilizing the structures, these results indicate that the project has been highly effective in accommodating mule deer movement.