National Center for Sustainable Transportation

Median barriers are usually constructed to reduce head-on-crashes between vehicles on undivided highways. Because of their position in the center of the traveled right-of-way, median barriers could affect wildlife movement across the right-of-way, decreasing wildlife connectivity. The authors coordinated and met with staff from several Caltrans Districts to gain understanding of their issues related to median barriers and wildlife permeability. The authors used previously and newly collected wildlife-vehicle collision (WVC) observations to test whether or not median types have different effects on unsuccessful wildlife crossings of the road surface. The authors used Generalized Linear Models (GLM) to compare WVC rates among median treatment types in three Caltrans Districts (2, 4, 9) for four wildlife species. The primary findings were that there are effects of median types on rates of WVC and that these effects varied by species and to some degree by geographic region (represented by Caltrans District). The primary finding is that fewer wildlife enter roadways and are killed in the presence of constructed median types than other types. Although this may result in a reduction in WVC, it also results in a reduction in wildlife permeability as most roadways do not have crossing structures and therefore attempts at wildlife permeability will be across the road surface. 

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