ARC: International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition

Fall 2008 – Spring 2011

Co-sponsors: Woodcock Foundation, Western Transportation Institute, Edmonton Community Foundation, U.S. Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Forest Service, Federal Lands Highway, Colorado Department of Transportation, U.S. National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Western Environmental Law Center, Habitat and Highways Campaign, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, ZAS, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, American Society of Landscape Architects, Ryerson University, I-70 Coalition, and University of Toronto.

ARC will engage the best and most innovative international, interdisciplinary design teams—comprised of landscape architects, architects, engineers, ecologists, and other experts—to create the next generation of wildlife overpasses for North America’s roadways. In doing so, the competition will raise international awareness around wildlife movement and protection while promoting feasible, buildable context-sensitive and compelling design solutions for safe, efficient, cost-effective, and ecologically responsive wildlife crossings.

ARC has four inter-related objectives. These are to:

  • Provide an avenue for international teams of design professionals to address new design challenges in the coalescent issues of road transportation safety, structural engineering, wildlife conservation and landscape ecology;
  • Explore creative new approaches, materials, and designs that address the fundamentals of transportation engineering and wildlife ecology;
  • Increase the number of potential solutions for cost effective, innovative crossing designsthat can be replicated or modifi ed for widespread use in other locations;
  • Engage design professionals and students in the interdisciplinary nature of road ecology with a real-time, in-situ application.