When urban areas intrude into former wildlife habitat areas, animals face challenges moving across busy roadways. In Australia, designers have worked to create passages for koalas to avoid the dangers of speeding motorists.
Australia's koala population is under threat as sprawl in New South Wales and Queensland is leading to what has been described as a "a genuinely apocalyptic scenario" that could drive the local koala population into extinction. Darryl Jones of The Conversation (as reported in Phys.org) reports that koalas have adapted to urban intrusion less successfully than other types of wildlife, with one of the major causes of death being collisions with cars. In response, designers have looked at various methods to keep koalas from crossing roadways while still allowing a wide range of movement that was also important to the health of the koala population. One solution has been to adapt box culverts typically found under roadways to allow for passage of smaller animals. To create a safe passage that avoided the water that typically runs through the culverts, designers built a wide ledge that allowed smaller animals to easily walk through.
By attaching a wide ledge to the side of the culvert leading from one side of the road to the other, animals could potentially traverse the danger zone above.
This possibility proved unexpectedly fruitful. Within only a few weeks, a remarkable suite of fauna including echidnas, wallabies, possums and goannas had found and used the ledges. But most exciting of all were the numerous koalas captured on the monitoring cameras and tracked by various technologies. These otherwise arboreal marsupials, whose main proclivity is climbing trees or walking – quickly – to the next tree, had somehow discovered a way of avoiding the great risks of the traffic above by travelling below on an artificial ledge over water in a dark tunnel!
Jones reports that authorities are also looking at changing the behavior of drivers, who have shown little response to wildlife signs placed along the roadway. Electronic signs that report the speed of drivers and changes in roadway paving color have been suggested as possible methods to get drivers to slow down in wildlife crossing areas.
FULL STORY: Saving koalas through urban design
Depopulation Patterns Get Weird
A recent ranking of “declining” cities heavily features some of the most expensive cities in the country — including New York City and a half-dozen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Chicago to Turn High-Rise Offices into Housing
Four commercial buildings in the Chicago Loop have been approved for redevelopment into housing in a bid to revitalize the city’s downtown post-pandemic.
How California Transit Agencies are Addressing Rider Harassment
Safety and harassment are commonly cited reasons passengers, particularly women and girls, avoid public transit.
Significant Investments Needed to Protect LA County Residents From Climate Hazards
A new study estimates that LA County must invest billions of dollars before 2040 to protect residents from extreme heat, increasing precipitation, worsening wildfires, rising sea levels, and climate-induced public health threats.
Federal Rule Raises Cost for Oil and Gas Extraction on Public Lands
An update to federal regulations raises minimum bonding to limit orphaned wells and ensure cleanup costs are covered — but it still may not be enough to mitigate the damages caused by oil and gas drilling.
City of Costa Mesa
Licking County
Barrett Planning Group LLC
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Universal City TX
ULI Northwest Arkansas
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.