Updates and behind the scenes information around our environmental initiatives, projects and programs, including wildlife mitigation, biking, Adopt-a-Highway and more.
We set up cameras at wildlife overpasses and underpasses to monitor how mammals and amphibians use them to safely cross highways. If we can watch their behaviour, we can see what’s working and what can be improved upon. So we get excited when we capture evidence of wildlife not only understanding how to navigate the safe passageways, but also teaching their young how to use them. After all, the ministry’s wildlife underpasses and overpasses are alien environments for most...
What the heck do ospreys and the BC Ministry of Transportation have in common? Would you believe the W.R. Bennett Bridge? You see, we aren’t just responsible for highways and the travellers who use them; we’re also responsible for wildlife living alongside BC highways and in recent years a family of ospreys have decided to call this bridge home. Known for their dramatic dives into water to catch live fish, ospreys construct their nests on top of dead trees,...
We made history achieving the longest fully automated rapid transit system in the world. We also moved it. We reached high, dug deep below, and enhanced wildlife areas along the way. Here is a collection of some of the challenges we faced and triumphs we celebrated building the Evergreen extension. Moving History – Centennial House was once the stately home to one of Port Moody’s founding City Councillors, Frederick Appleyard. One of the few remaining landmarks from the booming lumber...
We know you love to ride your bicycle and our BikeBC program helps municipalities fund their cycling initiatives, getting you on your bike. How does funding work? Creating and maintaining cycling infrastructure within towns and cities in BC is the responsibility of local governments and BikeBC supports their efforts. Every year, BikeBC invites municipalities and First Nations to apply for money to pay for the construction of new cycling initiatives in their communities. There is a 50/50 cost-share split....
Now that the two Wildlife Detection Systems on Highway 3 have been operating for about three months, we thought you’d be interested is seeing some of the thermal camera footage we’ve captured showing the system safely guiding interactions between vehicles and animals. How do these thermal cameras work? They create images based on heat radiating from animals and objects such as vehicles. There are nine thermal cameras set up in each wildlife detection corridor, and they work in conjunction...
We’re battling invasive plants along BC highways, and we’re enlisting Adopt a Highway volunteers to keep these unwelcome intruders from capturing more territory. Adopt a Highway volunteers are our allies in the attack; because they’re on the ground on assigned sections of BC highways. To arm them for managing invasive weeds, we’ve got a new video showing how to spot, report and remove invasive weeds. The pulling weeds part is optional, but for groups that want to jump in...
Sometimes we work on a project that changes not just the highway, but the world around it. Such was the case with our recent work on scenic Highway 95 at Luxor Creek. A key wildlife corridor connecting important animal habitats between the Purcell and Rocky Mountains is a step closer to reality thanks, in part, to the new Luxor Creek Bridge. To say we are thrilled to be a part of making it happen is an understatement (normally, our...
Plug in. Charge up. Go! Owners of electric vehicles (EVs) can get a boost to their travel times thanks to recent legislation allowing them to use High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV) lanes in BC (regardless of the number of passengers being carried). HOV lanes were created to move more people in fewer vehicles, reducing congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. HOV lanes are in place on several provincial highways and urban corridors in the Lower Mainland and Kelowna. Allowing EVs to...
UPDATE March 7, 2017 When we pilot a new project like this, we do so with the intent to test, learn and with understanding that there may be some bumps along the way. Those “bumps” help us smooth out any challenges the project might have before it becomes a permanent or large scale installation. We’ve recently had one of those bumps in our Wildlife Detection System pilot project near Elko. Radars along this particular corridor depend on their antenna...
If you want to attract fish, you need to think like a fish (or so the old adage goes). Until recently, any fish swimming up Heart Creek under BC Highway 6 in Fauquier might have been thinking that the world was conspiring against them. That’s because the culvert carrying Heart Creek under the highway had been badly undercut from scouring during freshet runoff in recent years, making spawning upstream of it almost impossible. Fear not little fishes! That pesky...
