Speak Up by July 31: Idaho Needs Safe Highways for Both People and Wildlife!
Idahoans have a big opportunity to ask the Idaho Transportation Department to do more to make our roads safer for the public and wildlife-friendly. A key agency document is now up for public comment.
The need for wildlife to get from one place to another affects nearly every Idahoan and visitor to our state. It informs planning and management on huge tracts of public and private lands. It touches everyone from dirt bikers to developers. Increasingly, fragmentation of Idaho’s natural landscapes makes it difficult for native wildlife to access and navigate vital habitats. Industrial and residential development, climate change, and public lands management all play a role in this conservation challenge. However, physical barriers presented by the nearly 50,000 miles of public roadways in Idaho are the primary factor that prevents natural movement of animals across the landscape.In addition to impacting movement patterns and migration behavior, roadways also contribute to direct mortality of Idaho’s native wildlife. Wildlife-vehicle collisions kill and injure thousands of animals on Idaho roadways each year and are a major safety concern to motorists.The financial toll of wildlife-vehicle encounters on our highways is also staggering. Annual economic costs from collisions on Idaho’s highways are estimated to be nearly $150 million. The average collision with a large ungulate in the United States and Canada has been estimated to cost over $6,000 per deer, $17,000 per elk, and $30,000 per moose (in 2007 dollars).The good news is, we know how to minimize societal and wildlife impacts from vehicle collisions. With thoughtful design of new highway projects and retrofits of existing infrastructure, roadways that carry Idahoans and visitors to the places they love can be made safer for travelers and wildlife. 
Infrastructure features that accommodate for the needs of wildlife, such as overpasses, underpasses, and wing fencing can reduce vehicle collisions by up to 90%. Evidence also shows that, over time, these vital infrastructure projects pay for themselves. A recent report from the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute concluded that there are over 270 locations in Idaho where crossing structures (underpasses, overpasses or a combination of both) “should be considered from an economic perspective alone.”From now until July 31, Idahoans have an opportunity to ask the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) to do more to make our roads wildlife-friendly. The agency’s guiding document that prioritizes and initiates projects, known as the Idaho Transportation Investment Program (ITIP), is now up for public review. The ITIP is a comprehensive list of almost $6 billion in spending for statewide projects envisioned by ITD over a rolling, seven-year cycle. Each year, as a “living document”, ITD releases the latest version of the ITIP for public comment. According to ITD, it’s a “critical tool for managing Idaho's transportation investments and ensuring that projects are selected and implemented in a transparent and cooperative manner.”
Projects like Cervidae Peak—the highly successful wildlife overpass on SH-21 east of Lucky Peak Reservoir—were planned and coordinated using ITIP in cooperation with the Federal Highways Administration. Mule deer and elk began using the crossing structure immediately after completion in the fall of 2023. It’s made a heavily used highway far safer for motorists and wildlife. Wildlife-vehicle collisions at that vital migration bottleneck are expected to decline by 80% or more.
Next year, ITD will oversee construction of another important wildlife infrastructure project on US-30, near Montpelier, in southeast Idaho. There, biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) have identified a critical crossing area and migration bottleneck in rural Bear Lake County using radio-collar data. The Rocky Point project is expected to restore the ability for some 6,000 animals in the Bear River Plateau Mule Deer herd to move securely between seasonal ranges.As our state continues to see record growth and visitation, motor vehicle impacts on wildlife are only going to increase. ICL encourages wildlife advocates across the state to use the ITIP process to remind ITD that crossing projects like Cervidae Peak and Rocky Point save lives, save money, and save wildlife. Recent polling shows that Idaho’s citizens overwhelmingly support conserving wildlife migration routes and constructing wildlife crossing structures across major highways that intersect those pathways. These projects also help IDFG achieve many of the ambitious habitat connectivity goals described in the agency’s Idaho Action Plan.ITD has the authority and the support of Idahoans to pursue win-win infrastructure solutions for wildlife and people. The agency can do this in many ways. ICL invites you to include examples of this from the list below in your comments to ITD on ITIP:
- Increase collaboration with other state and federal agencies and research institutions, like Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, to use the best available science when planning infrastructure projects.
- Coordinate with IDFG, statewide and at the ITD district level, to ensure that ITIP is integrated with recommendations made in the State Wildlife Action Plan and the Idaho Action Plan.
- Update ITD’s guidance document: Methodology for Prioritizing Appropriate Mitigation Actions to Reduce Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions on Idaho Highways.
- Incorporate design features that minimize wildlife impacts into early planning stages of every new ITD project.
- Convene a stakeholder advisory working group, that includes the public and NGOs, to assist ITD in developing bottom-up, collaborative solutions to highway infrastructure challenges posed to wildlife.
- Work with counties and municipalities to build support for sensible infrastructure solutions that increase the safety of motorists and protect Idaho’s wildlife heritage for generations to come.
- Work with state legislators to match federal grants or fully fund wildlife-friendly features for future ITD projects.
- Work with Governor Little to formally recognize the importance of wildlife migration corridors and prioritize funding that addresses habitat fragmentation from highway infrastructure.
- Work with the local and Washington D.C. offices of the Federal Highways Administration to expedite grantmaking opportunities.
Over the next seven years, billions of your tax dollars will be spent on Idaho’s highway infrastructure. Idaho’s conservation advocates now have a unique opportunity to weigh in on the future of our state’s wildlife during this important ITIP public comment period. ICL encourages you to take action for Idaho's wildlife by submitting public comment by July 31, and ask the agency to prioritize more wildlife-friendly projects in their long-range planning process!