4 ms·

Largest wildlife overpass in North America reduced wildlife collision by 91%

102 points by consumer451 6d ago

AmazingEveryDay 6d ago
[flagged]
- pvaldes 6d ago
  > going to bed with a deep hunger in the pit of one's stomach. I'm fine with that, as their dinner shouldn't depend on me suffering an horrible car crash and being hurt or killed. The people will save a lot of money if they don't need to replace 500 cars each year, therefore more money to feed themselves. They will not be forced to eat dog corpses.
- gucci-on-fleek 6d ago
  > there are many people that have a significant reliance on roadkill to fulfill their dietary needs. I doubt that many people are collecting roadkill on a 75mph 6-lane divided freeway though, since I can't really think of any safe way to collect it. But even if you could collect it, hitting anything small at that speed will completely pulverize it, and hitting anything larger will seriously hurt the vehicle's occupants, so it's probably best to stick to smaller roads.
- whatisthiseven 6d ago
  This is peak bean soup theory on HN. Always has to be at least one commenter, "but what about my highly specific scenario? All the other people benefiting are an aberration to my specific need or wild singular example" Fund SNAP, not discount game meat through the deaths of others.
  - probablyStimmed 6d ago
    Nailed it. Adding the fact that the majority of HN comments are negative or at least at odds with the post, HN is a bean soup fallacy/theory/dilemma generation system.
  - consumer451 6d ago
    Agree 100%. Also, hitting a deer at highway speeds can lead to the death of the occupants of the vehicle. This is not some country road! This is an actual win-win scenario, for humans and wildlife.
  - ducktoysleftout 6d ago
    SNAP is funded. Food pantries are abundant. Nobody is eating roadkill to survive as a matter of necessity. If you’re eating carrion that’s probably a lifestyle choice and indicative of some mental illness. A wildlife overpass is certainly not going to be cheap, but I could see the road user safety benefit penciling out over the life of the asset. I wonder why you would send the animals over (and span the whole roadway) rather than under (cut and cover a box culvert). Either way, it would be nice to see this better funded for rural America.
    - ghostsigns 6d ago
      The lives of the animals also matter. On a related note, they don’t send them under because most wild animals do not like enclosed tunnels and would not use them.
      - deleted 6d ago
        [deleted]
    - Terr_ 6d ago
      > SNAP is funded. Disregarding the weird roadkill thing: "Funded" isn't necessarily a meaningful determination, since Congress providing 100% funding for $5 that zero people are eligible to receive would also be "fully funded." In 2025 Republicans slashed its budget by the biggest cut in history, and today participation is the lowest in 17 years. I doubt any of us honestly believe the drop is because everybody's financial situation has gotten way better right now, or because groceries got cheaper. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-harmful-2025 https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-p...
    - gausswho 6d ago
      The CBS article (https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overpass-north-america-colorado-reduce-wildlife-collisions/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overp...) mentions there's one large overpass which gets all the attention, but also there's five underpasses. There's a photo of some deer using one towards the bottom.
- probablyStimmed 6d ago
  Ignoring my incredulity at this response, the risk to the lives of the drivers seems to me to be of greater importance than the potential that some people might benefit from the carcasses lying on the side of road.
  - anonymars 6d ago
    I have to admit, my life would be a little more boring without some of the hot takes I find here sometimes Like, maybe I can just buy you a cheeseburger instead of totalling my car
- deleted 6d ago
  [deleted]
- malfist 6d ago
  My brother almost died in a car wreck with a deer.
- dendrite9 6d ago
  Last thought before the deer goes through my windshield and kills me is: "At least someone can eat this roadkill." Reducing car/animal collisions is a good thing for cars(drivers) and animals.
ChrisArchitect 6d ago
Story instead of reddit: https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overpass-north-america-colorado-reduce-wildlife-collisions/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overp...
ChrisArchitect 6d ago
As expected from the press release at open about 9 months ago. (they estimated 90% reduction https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46321557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46321557) The $15M price tag still seems like a lot. Happy for the critters and motorists tho
- sophacles 6d ago
  Instead of doing that boring thing the unthinking do - I challenge you to ask why 15M seems like a lot. Is it a lot in comparrison to the costs to the taxpayers for all the emergency crews responding to animal caused accidents over the lifetime of the crossing, not to mention dealing with carcasses of animals, etc? How much of any single person's tax money went into it? How long until those few cents get paid off in terms of saved time and gas by not dealing with the traffic backup from those accidents? How much do those few cents amortize to your savings in reduced insurance since thats less potential accident you have to bet against... how much savings does that reduction confer on your expected direct costs in cas you had been in a the accident? Does 15M still seem like a lot? Maybe you think it could be built cheaper - how? Show your work. All these things sure are an interesting conversation to have. Much more interesting than "hur dur, 15M is a big number" anyway.
  - Terr_ 6d ago
    Just trying some napkin math... Some very surface-level searching shows someone claiming a total societal cost of ~$7k per deer collision. Supposing it's a $15m construction and could last 30 years without major maintenance, then it needs to stop ~71 events per year to "pay for itself". To be fair, that is the cost of collisions rather than any near-misses and traffic problems, or the less-quantified ecological cost.
    - jdyer9 6d ago
      That seems well within reason, an article said about 1 deer collision prevented per day in the spring and fall high season. Having driven through the area and seen dashcam footage of collisions and near collisions, that $7k makes sense to me. I've known several people that have hit deer on the highways here, and I'm actually surprised if anything that the number is that low. So my gut feeling is that it actually has slightly better returns than expected from those numbers.
PeterHolzwarth 6d ago
"This area was getting about one deer hit a day" Relative to how many didn't get hit, what's the percentage there?
- majormajor 6d ago
  I'm curious about the POV you're coming from. I don't think the number of deer who don't get hit is relevant to the math on injury prevention, traffic prevention, and ongoing operational and property damage costs.
  - kazinator 6d ago
    Well, yes; for that you need the number of cars that that don't hit a deer. :)
    - xboxnolifes 6d ago
      No you don't. You only need total costs of accidents before and after this crossing.
  - pestatije 6d ago
    its to gauge the true need to build an overpass in the first place... like imagine the extreme case of a 50% hit rate. In that case building an overpass is completely unjustified, since after the second day the problem is gone
JKCalhoun 6d ago
I've seen it and a few others on recent road trips. Additionally, Colorado (and other states) are putting these "animal escape ramps" along the sides of highways. From what I can gather, a fence runs along the freeway on both sides—presumably to keep the wildlife out. But, I suppose in case an animal makes it into the danger zone, every mile or so there are dirt berms built against the fence that provide a way up and over the fence. Presumably they drop off on the other side so an animal is not as likely to use these in reverse: to get into the danger zone. Additionally, there are often small partitions at each berm, jutting out from the fence. I imagine an animal following along the fence—when they arrive at the partition, they either go around it and continue, or do the right thing: climb the berm to get to the other side of the fence. (Apparently called "Jump Outs": https://www.dot.state.wy.us/home/news_info/district_news_info/district_3/jackson-south/wildlife.html https://www.dot.state.wy.us/home/news_info/district_news_inf...)
maartenscholl 6d ago
Surprised it took so long for a car-centric country to get on board with these
morninglight 6d ago
We need more of these - for pedestrians!
tobias2014 6d ago
Practical Engineering has a good video about wildlife crossings (2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mYpQWPtfpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mYpQWPtfpo

102 points by consumer451 6d ago

AmazingEveryDay 6d ago

[flagged]

pvaldes 6d ago
> going to bed with a deep hunger in the pit of one's stomach. I'm fine with that, as their dinner shouldn't depend on me suffering an horrible car crash and being hurt or killed. The people will save a lot of money if they don't need to replace 500 cars each year, therefore more money to feed themselves. They will not be forced to eat dog corpses.
gucci-on-fleek 6d ago
> there are many people that have a significant reliance on roadkill to fulfill their dietary needs. I doubt that many people are collecting roadkill on a 75mph 6-lane divided freeway though, since I can't really think of any safe way to collect it. But even if you could collect it, hitting anything small at that speed will completely pulverize it, and hitting anything larger will seriously hurt the vehicle's occupants, so it's probably best to stick to smaller roads.
whatisthiseven 6d ago
This is peak bean soup theory on HN. Always has to be at least one commenter, "but what about my highly specific scenario? All the other people benefiting are an aberration to my specific need or wild singular example" Fund SNAP, not discount game meat through the deaths of others.
- probablyStimmed 6d ago
  Nailed it. Adding the fact that the majority of HN comments are negative or at least at odds with the post, HN is a bean soup fallacy/theory/dilemma generation system.
- consumer451 6d ago
  Agree 100%. Also, hitting a deer at highway speeds can lead to the death of the occupants of the vehicle. This is not some country road! This is an actual win-win scenario, for humans and wildlife.
- ducktoysleftout 6d ago
  SNAP is funded. Food pantries are abundant. Nobody is eating roadkill to survive as a matter of necessity. If you’re eating carrion that’s probably a lifestyle choice and indicative of some mental illness. A wildlife overpass is certainly not going to be cheap, but I could see the road user safety benefit penciling out over the life of the asset. I wonder why you would send the animals over (and span the whole roadway) rather than under (cut and cover a box culvert). Either way, it would be nice to see this better funded for rural America.
  - ghostsigns 6d ago
    The lives of the animals also matter. On a related note, they don’t send them under because most wild animals do not like enclosed tunnels and would not use them.
    - deleted 6d ago
      [deleted]
  - Terr_ 6d ago
    > SNAP is funded. Disregarding the weird roadkill thing: "Funded" isn't necessarily a meaningful determination, since Congress providing 100% funding for $5 that zero people are eligible to receive would also be "fully funded." In 2025 Republicans slashed its budget by the biggest cut in history, and today participation is the lowest in 17 years. I doubt any of us honestly believe the drop is because everybody's financial situation has gotten way better right now, or because groceries got cheaper. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-harmful-2025 https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-p...
  - gausswho 6d ago
    The CBS article (https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overpass-north-america-colorado-reduce-wildlife-collisions/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overp...) mentions there's one large overpass which gets all the attention, but also there's five underpasses. There's a photo of some deer using one towards the bottom.
probablyStimmed 6d ago
Ignoring my incredulity at this response, the risk to the lives of the drivers seems to me to be of greater importance than the potential that some people might benefit from the carcasses lying on the side of road.
- anonymars 6d ago
  I have to admit, my life would be a little more boring without some of the hot takes I find here sometimes Like, maybe I can just buy you a cheeseburger instead of totalling my car
deleted 6d ago
[deleted]
malfist 6d ago
My brother almost died in a car wreck with a deer.
dendrite9 6d ago
Last thought before the deer goes through my windshield and kills me is: "At least someone can eat this roadkill." Reducing car/animal collisions is a good thing for cars(drivers) and animals.

ChrisArchitect 6d ago

Story instead of reddit: https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overpass-north-america-colorado-reduce-wildlife-collisions/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overp...

ChrisArchitect 6d ago

As expected from the press release at open about 9 months ago. (they estimated 90% reduction https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46321557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46321557) The $15M price tag still seems like a lot. Happy for the critters and motorists tho

sophacles 6d ago
Instead of doing that boring thing the unthinking do - I challenge you to ask why 15M seems like a lot. Is it a lot in comparrison to the costs to the taxpayers for all the emergency crews responding to animal caused accidents over the lifetime of the crossing, not to mention dealing with carcasses of animals, etc? How much of any single person's tax money went into it? How long until those few cents get paid off in terms of saved time and gas by not dealing with the traffic backup from those accidents? How much do those few cents amortize to your savings in reduced insurance since thats less potential accident you have to bet against... how much savings does that reduction confer on your expected direct costs in cas you had been in a the accident? Does 15M still seem like a lot? Maybe you think it could be built cheaper - how? Show your work. All these things sure are an interesting conversation to have. Much more interesting than "hur dur, 15M is a big number" anyway.
- Terr_ 6d ago
  Just trying some napkin math... Some very surface-level searching shows someone claiming a total societal cost of ~$7k per deer collision. Supposing it's a $15m construction and could last 30 years without major maintenance, then it needs to stop ~71 events per year to "pay for itself". To be fair, that is the cost of collisions rather than any near-misses and traffic problems, or the less-quantified ecological cost.
  - jdyer9 6d ago
    That seems well within reason, an article said about 1 deer collision prevented per day in the spring and fall high season. Having driven through the area and seen dashcam footage of collisions and near collisions, that $7k makes sense to me. I've known several people that have hit deer on the highways here, and I'm actually surprised if anything that the number is that low. So my gut feeling is that it actually has slightly better returns than expected from those numbers.

PeterHolzwarth 6d ago

"This area was getting about one deer hit a day" Relative to how many didn't get hit, what's the percentage there?

majormajor 6d ago
I'm curious about the POV you're coming from. I don't think the number of deer who don't get hit is relevant to the math on injury prevention, traffic prevention, and ongoing operational and property damage costs.
- kazinator 6d ago
  Well, yes; for that you need the number of cars that that don't hit a deer. :)
  - xboxnolifes 6d ago
    No you don't. You only need total costs of accidents before and after this crossing.
- pestatije 6d ago
  its to gauge the true need to build an overpass in the first place... like imagine the extreme case of a 50% hit rate. In that case building an overpass is completely unjustified, since after the second day the problem is gone

JKCalhoun 6d ago

I've seen it and a few others on recent road trips. Additionally, Colorado (and other states) are putting these "animal escape ramps" along the sides of highways. From what I can gather, a fence runs along the freeway on both sides—presumably to keep the wildlife out. But, I suppose in case an animal makes it into the danger zone, every mile or so there are dirt berms built against the fence that provide a way up and over the fence. Presumably they drop off on the other side so an animal is not as likely to use these in reverse: to get into the danger zone. Additionally, there are often small partitions at each berm, jutting out from the fence. I imagine an animal following along the fence—when they arrive at the partition, they either go around it and continue, or do the right thing: climb the berm to get to the other side of the fence. (Apparently called "Jump Outs": https://www.dot.state.wy.us/home/news_info/district_news_info/district_3/jackson-south/wildlife.html https://www.dot.state.wy.us/home/news_info/district_news_inf...)

maartenscholl 6d ago

Surprised it took so long for a car-centric country to get on board with these

morninglight 6d ago

We need more of these - for pedestrians!

tobias2014 6d ago

Practical Engineering has a good video about wildlife crossings (2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mYpQWPtfpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mYpQWPtfpo