MoDOT receives federal grant to study wildlife-related road crashes
Summary
COLUMBIA The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) will use a $320,000 grant to conduct a year-long study identifying roadway locations where the most wildlife-vehicle collisions occur.The U.S. Department of Transportations Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced the grant last week. The project intends to create a uniform method to integrate wildlife crossings into the pre-planning phases of future improvements.MoDOT Assistant Chief Engineer Eric Schroeter said the state has monitored wildlife-vehicle crashes since 2012. "One of the things we want to do with this grant money is hire a consultant to help us do the study to actually evaluated the data that we have to determine where are those hotspots that we can potentially target to do some projects to improve them. "Missouri is one of 17 states selected to receive funding in the first round of $110 million in grants for 19 wildlife crossing projects.The funding comes from a new program in President Joe Bidens Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that supports projects to construct wildlife crossings over and below busy roads.It is estimated that there are more than 1 million wildlife-vehicle collisions involving large animals that result in injuries to the driver and passengers in the United States each year, according to a press release. These collisions are estimated to cost the public more than $10 billion annually.Every year, too many Americans are injured or killed in crashes involving cars and wildlife, especially in rural areas, but President Biden is tackling this challenge through these first-ever roadway safety grants, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in the release.The full list of project selections can be found at Wildlife Crossings Program.