For a handful of years, the Utah Department of Transportation worked with the grassroots Summit County non-profit organization Save People Save Wildlife to install a bridge across I-80 at the top of Parley's Canyon.
The success of the bridge has surprised wildlife and UDOT officials. The original predictions were that the animals might take several generations to learn of the location and teach their young. The experts were wrong in their estimates and almost instantly, animals, great and small, began using the bridge for safe migration across the busy I-80 corridor.
The bridge was inaugurated in the fall of 2018. Several months ago, a wildlife video burst onto the international stage when the BBC posted 20 minutes of time-lapsed wildlife migration back and forth across the overpass.
A founding member of Save People Save Wildlife, Erin Ferguson said the bridge's rapid success is cause for celebration. She said people tend to focus on the wildlife overpass as a singular solution. She said future projects will require a variety of wildlife crossing components.
“You know, we can’t just place one component of this. We can't just have a wildlife overpass because if we don't have fencing or cattle guards, they won't be guided to the safe migration path. We can’t have wildlife fencing standing alone because we can’t isolate these animals from each other or access to water or food.”
State Route 224 studies have reported up to 42,000 vehicles per day during peak times, typically winter months. It's the time of year when the elk herd migrates back and from the farm to Round Valley's hills. Park City Police, Summit County Sheriff's Deputies, and UHP are frequently managing traffic along the stretch of road by the White Barn in the mornings and evenings when the herd is moving. Collision studies show the road section is one of the top five most deadly wildlife roadways in the state.
“So, what we would like to do is, moving forward, time the wildlife mitigation placement with Summit County’s projects that they have planned for 224 and 248, Silver Creek Junction, the Kimball Junction improvement project. Why not have those wildlife mitigation components planned for and budgeted for in these improvement projects. It just makes sense.”
Ferguson said preventing collisions between motorists and animals is a multi-dimensional issue.
"People want to see our wildlife preserved. They want to see the animals and coexist with them. The importance of it from an aesthetic standpoint and as a valuable resource, as well as an economic perspective and as well as a safety perspective. It's very expensive to build these and place these wildlife mitigation components. But it's much more expensive to pay for first responders and law enforcement, and a big semi-truck, you know, hits a moose on I-80 and rolls, and traffic is stopped for hours. Those things are expensive too. It bodes well that we seriously think about appropriate placement for these in the future. You know, as soon as we put roadways in, we disrupt, and you know we need to take some responsibility for our actions in that regard."
Ferguson said they met with UDOT last February, and at that time, officials said they wanted more studies done on the elk migration across SR 224. Ferguson said coupling the wildlife crossing project with Summit County's plans to build a transit lane makes sense.
"If they're planning on the 224-bus rapid transit, we can encourage them to combine wildlife mitigation components with this transit system, get an appropriate means for these animals to cross back and forth."
SPSW wants to raise $500,000 in 2021 to close the fencing gaps along I-80 between Parley's Summit and Silver Creek Junction. They continue to urge UDOT to install cattle guards at the on and off-ramps as part of their collision prevention efforts.
