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.
The ROI is beyond solid. It's actually insane this wasn't done sooner at this location. The normal ROI for a wildlife crossing is 15 years. Here, it's two to three years.
> Cost savings: Each prevented wildlife–vehicle collision can save thousands of dollars—more than $19,000 per deer crash, $73,000 per elk, and $110,000 per moose—in vehicle, injury, and wildlife costs, making well-placed crossings a strong investment [0]
This section of highway had one deer-vehicle collision per day.
edit: this post and resulting thread made me realize that "wildlife crossing" sounds far too tree-hugger for our society. They need to rebrand to "obvious money-saving infrastructure," or better.
I know cost-effectivness is often the deciding factor, but that's kinda sad, so:
One deer hit a day, down 91% means ~330 deers saved per year.
$15m spread over the working population (160m) of the US is less than $0.10 per person.
So you're spending $0.10 to save 330 deer, which is a trade I would make.
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.
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.
Something like this only costs $15m because the incentives are crap. You know it if you've driven past any road construction project. 90% of the people at any given time are standing around. You have to pay just as much for a person to stand around as you do for them to be doing useful work.
Fixing the incentives is not easy at all. There are a lot of "good reasons" why this happens. Many of them are failures down the line, but no one at the contractor level pays the price for not mitigating them, so they don't. If a truck doesn't arrive on time, you could find something else useful to do, or you could just stand around waiting. If you/your company is paid by the hour, it's more profitable to stand there.
Your company could also charge the trucking company for arriving late, or the concrete plant for making them wait. This is not customary in the industry though.
Suppose you fixed all of this though. For a given number of construction projects, you'd need way less labor. If profits are a percentage of costs, less labor means less profit. Making things more efficient means the construction company has to lay a bunch of people off and make less profit, so their incentive is to convince the government that inflated costs are reasonable.
I'm not sure what the solution is. Laying people off is painful. However, one thing you might do would be to do more work for the same money, or higher quality work for the same money.
"…90% of the people at any given time are standing around."
Someone needs to write "Road Crew Simulator"—a game where you get to boss workers around and keep them busy rolling out asphalt, stacking traffic cones, etc. I had thought I knew of just one guaranteed customer for the game (my wife) but perhaps there are two!
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.
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
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_inf...)
Practical Engineering has a good video about wildlife crossings (2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mYpQWPtfpo
Story instead of reddit: https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/largest-wildlife-overp...
Surprised it took so long for a car-centric country to get on board with these
We need more of these - for pedestrians!
As expected from the press release at open about 9 months ago. (they estimated 90% reduction https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46321557)
The $15M price tag still seems like a lot. Happy for the critters and motorists tho
The ROI is beyond solid. It's actually insane this wasn't done sooner at this location. The normal ROI for a wildlife crossing is 15 years. Here, it's two to three years.
> Cost savings: Each prevented wildlife–vehicle collision can save thousands of dollars—more than $19,000 per deer crash, $73,000 per elk, and $110,000 per moose—in vehicle, injury, and wildlife costs, making well-placed crossings a strong investment [0]
This section of highway had one deer-vehicle collision per day.
365 * $19,000 = $6,935,000 per year.
[0] https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/202...
___
edit: this post and resulting thread made me realize that "wildlife crossing" sounds far too tree-hugger for our society. They need to rebrand to "obvious money-saving infrastructure," or better.
I know cost-effectivness is often the deciding factor, but that's kinda sad, so: One deer hit a day, down 91% means ~330 deers saved per year. $15m spread over the working population (160m) of the US is less than $0.10 per person. So you're spending $0.10 to save 330 deer, which is a trade I would make.
This section of highway had one deer-vehicle collision per day.
That sounds like an extreme outlier.
Yes, they place these at places where they're needed, the outliers.
$15M is less than 4 Patriot PAC-3 MSEs. Which do you prefer your taxes to be spent on?
It’s not “burn 15M on missiles or spend it inefficiently on infra buildout”. It could also be “spend half as much on efficient infra buildout”
$15M is dirt cheap for the USA. That buys you like 100 yards of urban light rail or something. :)
If I did the math right, Seattle-area Federal Way Link Extension costs $185k per yard, getting 81 yards for $15M.
God we're terrible at building things.
Don't forget the decades of time it takes to build the tracks.
Is that the California high speed rail I see trying to hide in the back?
That’s like one decently sized house with a yard and garage in a good neighborhood in the bay area
Cool - want to suggest changes to the legal code to lower the cost?
No more cost plus contracts.
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.
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.
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.
The article linked by JKCalhoun lists
Something like this only costs $15m because the incentives are crap. You know it if you've driven past any road construction project. 90% of the people at any given time are standing around. You have to pay just as much for a person to stand around as you do for them to be doing useful work.
Fixing the incentives is not easy at all. There are a lot of "good reasons" why this happens. Many of them are failures down the line, but no one at the contractor level pays the price for not mitigating them, so they don't. If a truck doesn't arrive on time, you could find something else useful to do, or you could just stand around waiting. If you/your company is paid by the hour, it's more profitable to stand there.
Your company could also charge the trucking company for arriving late, or the concrete plant for making them wait. This is not customary in the industry though.
Suppose you fixed all of this though. For a given number of construction projects, you'd need way less labor. If profits are a percentage of costs, less labor means less profit. Making things more efficient means the construction company has to lay a bunch of people off and make less profit, so their incentive is to convince the government that inflated costs are reasonable.
I'm not sure what the solution is. Laying people off is painful. However, one thing you might do would be to do more work for the same money, or higher quality work for the same money.
"…90% of the people at any given time are standing around."
Someone needs to write "Road Crew Simulator"—a game where you get to boss workers around and keep them busy rolling out asphalt, stacking traffic cones, etc. I had thought I knew of just one guaranteed customer for the game (my wife) but perhaps there are two!
Your fantasy about 90% of workers idling at a construction site is just that: a fantasy. Go watch a road crew sometime. Everyone is working.
"This area was getting about one deer hit a day"
Relative to how many didn't get hit, what's the percentage there?
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.
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
Well, yes; for that you need the number of cars that that don't hit a deer. :)
No you don't. You only need total costs of accidents before and after this crossing.