SAFE PASSAGE:
Towards an Integrated Planning Approach to Landscape Connectivity
Enhancing landscape connectivity is an interdisciplinary socio-ecological challenge that is not in the mandate of any single agency. Although the infrastructural design solutions to reducing fragmentation are known to work, there is an urgent need for a coordinated, integrated approach to planning and design for widespread sustainable implementation of these infrastructures.
This Safe Passages partnership is structured around a working group of academics and partner organizations including: community leaders in urban and landscape planning and conservation working alongside professional planners, landscape architects, ecologists, and sustainability and policy experts to generate material results for public exhibition, policy stimulus, and civic dialogue.
This partnership advances an integrated approach for the sustainable planning, design, and implementation of crossing infrastructure and improved landscape connectivity to: (re)connect landscapes for the safe passage of humans and wildlife; reach predominantly urban populations by bringing landscape connectivity issues to the urban scale; and improve our contemporary relationship with wildlife across urbanizing landscapes through innovative planning and design.
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What are CoLaboratories?
The CoLaboratory “CoLab” is a team-based method for design research and development to advance integrated solutions to complex problems for which there currently few protocols and little or no agency practice. In a collaborative workshop format, participants come together to apply, present and share emerging research in the design of new solutions for human and wildlife mobility across urbanizing landscapes.
Through the Safe Passage partnership, EDL engages with organizations in charrette-model design thinking to co-create a resolution to these shortcomings. In this way, the CoLab offers opportunity to designers, professionals, and stakeholders to seek collaborative proactive solutions concerning implementation barriers of wildlife crossing infrastructure.
The Beyond Safe Passage CoLab session represents the final phase of the Safe Passage project, which investigates the challenges and opportunities around institutional silos, and enhances collaborations between the relevant agencies, levels of government, and organizations concerning landscape connectivity practices. The five Safe Passage CoLab’s are predecessors to the Beyond Safe Passage project – which culminated most notably with the 2022 Beyond Safe Passage Visualizing Connectivity CoLab.
Information on the five Safe Passage CoLabs, as well as the Beyond Safe Passage CoLab are detailed below.
Liberty Canyon CoLab: Building a Bridge to the Future Highway 101 Wildlife Overpass
The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing at Liberty Canyon (currently under construction) will be one of the largest in the world, the first in California, and represents an unprecedented milestone for urban wildlife conservation. This high profile and large-scale project will inspire future work in reconnecting landscapes and green infrastructure for the safe passage of humans and wildlife, for generations to come.
EDL, along with partners ARC Solutions were invited by Beth Pratt (the Regional Executive Director of the National Wildlife Federation) to lead a professional CoLab workshop to review and respond to the design developed to date for the Highway 101 wildlife crossing project at Liberty Canyon, located northwest of Los Angeles, California.
The stated objective of the Liberty Canyon CoLab was to review the current design and plans from Caltrans Phase 2, Project Approval & Environmental Document (PAED), and identify ways to improve, innovate, and reduce costs where appropriate. To do so, participants were divided into four working groups to collaboratively approach recommendations which pertain to the design of the structure, including the approach, the landscape surface, and the sub-and-superstructure elements of the crossing.
The group has continued to provide a external peer-review throughout the design process to ensure that considerations for successful design are integrated in the project design and program including the following considerations:
- The design of a landscape surface conductive to the successful conveyance of focal wildlife species
- An assessment of the potential to realize a reduction in the overall load on the superstructure and the resulting opportunities to streamline the substructure design
- The integration of disturbance mitigation to reduce the effects of traffic noise, light, vibration, and visual disturbance from moving vehicles on the overpass surface and approach
- Construction methods that reduce site and traffic disturbance
- Design opportunities for value-added landscape and ecological performance of the approaches on either side of the structure
- Integration of “place-making” design elements that highlight the ecological and social significance of the structure
Toronto CoLab: a Way Forward for a Complex Multi-Use Trail - the Meadoway
EDL was invited by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) to lead an interprofessional CoLab workshop to review and respond to the design and Request for Proposals developed to date for the Meadoway greenspace corridor. The Meadoway project will see the transformation of 16 kilometers of underutilized greenspace between Rouge National Urban Park and downtown Toronto, into a more cohesive and revitalized active transportation network and community gathering place.
By engaging in the CoLab process, the project team sought to ensure that the Meadoway will showcase the scale, design excellence, engineering, quality and effectiveness of greenspace revitalization that is possible in an urban setting.
The stated objective of the Meadoway CoLab was to discuss guiding principles and design directions for the project. Participants were divided into three working groups, and discussed existing studies, Requests for Proposals and engagement principles framed through guided questions and discussion.
The Meadoway CoLab presented the TRCA with considerations pertaining to two main themes: uses and landscape typologies, and reconnecting landscapes.
Calgary CoLab: Design Innovation for Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure at the Trans-Canada Highway
EDL along with partners ARC Solutions were invited by Jill Robertson and Antonio Gomez-Palacio (DIALOG Design), to lead a professional CoLab with the purpose to develop design solutions for the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) wildlife crossing project (east of Banff National Park in the Bow River Valley of Alberta). The Trans-Canada Highway is a key access point to the mountain parks of the Canadian Rockies. It also provides connections to Calgary, various local communities, and the Stoney Indian Reserve. The area is rich in wildlife, including both large and small mammals. With a high rate of wildlife vehicle collisions (WVC), DIALOG has engaged with Alberta Transportation to design a new overpass structure for mitigation. This high profile and large-scale project will set a precedent for future work in reconnecting landscapes and green infrastructure for the safe passage of both humans and wildlife.
The stated objective of the Calgary CoLab was to design a wildlife overpass structure that will be appropriate to span four, six or eight lane highway cross sections, and consider an adjacent multi-use trail.
Participants were divided into two teams and were told that the design response should consider a number of factors, including, but not limited to: constructability, structural stability, life cycle and long term durability, aesthetics and design impact, ecological connectivity, landscape architecture and integration with the surrounding environment. The CoLab outcomes presented a series of recommendations for design, communication, procurement, and overall process.
Edmonton CoLab: Towards Integrated Green Infrastructure Design
EDL along with partners ARC Solutions, and the Safe Passages Partnership Team, were invited to facilitate an interdepartmental and community stakeholder CoLab to review and respond to Riverview and Decoteau in the City of Edmonton, Alberta. The Riverview and Decoteau areas in the City of Edmonton were selected as key urbanizing landscapes with particular opportunity to enhance ecological connectivity and integration within the City’s green network, while also addressing the growing pressures for development in coming decades.
CoLab participants were organized into two working groups and each was tasked with developing a design concept intended to enhance ecological connectivity and function in response to the assigned site.
During the first phase of the CoLab, particular attention was paid to landscape and streetscape design elements, ecological connectivity and biodiversity, and ecological greenways and corridors, as well as wildlife movement, and green and blue infrastructure. The outcome of the first phase was an overall spatial design concept. These concepts were supported by policy objectives presented at the end of the second phase.
Specifically, the teams were asked to:
- Explore and develop landscape design approaches that facilitate the planning and implementation of ecological connectivity enhancements within the urban matrix
- Exchange insights and identify common emerging approaches and strategies in municipal planning and design research to advance resilient city building
Montana CoLab: Exploring Fibre-Reinforced Plastic Bridges for Wildlife
Well-designed wildlife crossing structures have been proven effective in reducing wildlife mortality, increasing motorist safety, and maintaining connectivity across roadways. As a result of their high cost, however, implementation of crossing infrastructure, and, in particular, wildlife overpasses, has been relatively rare compared to other mitigation solutions. Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bridges present a less expensive and more adaptable design that would allow transportation planners and engineers to construct numerous FRP wildlife crossings for the cost of a single concrete overpass. A composite material of structural fibers set in a mold of thermoset resin, FRP structures can be up to three-times lighter than concrete and steel bridges and exhibit a range of qualities that lend them to next-generation bridge construction.
EDL along with partners ARC Solutions, were invited by the Western Transportation Institute and Montana State University, to lead a professional workshop to explore new materials, design and building solutions for Hyalite Canyon Road as well as Bozeman Pass in Montana, USA. Both locations present opportunities in Montana for planned and future wildlife crossings. The two teams were assigned either sites and were provided with the specifications.
During the CoLab process, the participants were asked to identify design opportunities and explored methods for incorporating FRP bridges into wildlife crossing infrastructure designs in North America; develop creative solutions to produce a wildlife overpass structure that utilizes novel materials to develop a structure that is feasible and adaptable; evaluated and articulated the political and administrative processes that will facilitate the adoption of plastic bridge designs by federal, state, and local transportation agencies.
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