Animal safety built into the 60 Freeway project in Badlands
Once construction of nearly five miles of truck lanes is completed through a steep, curvy portion of the 60 Freeway in the Badlands in Riverside County, truck drivers will be following a dedicated, safer route in their journey.
But some of the improvements will be out of sight, thanks to a concurrent project of subsurface freeway underpasses that scientists believe will lead to safer animal crossings and less roadkill.
Specifically, beneath the special truck lanes between Gilman Springs Road and Jack Rabbit Trail, east of Moreno Valley and west of
Beaumont, will be two 20by-20 concrete underpasses that are 200 feet in length, connecting the north side of the freeway to the south side, said Rafael Gutierrez, senior project manager with Skanska, the construction partner with the Riverside County Transportation Commission and Caltrans on the project.
Both are the premiere features of a series of wildlife undercrossings beneath the six-lane freeway and also under the new truck lanes and road shoulders that are part of the $138.4million project.
The other passageways include seven new concrete culverts or large pipes ranging from 36 inches to 60inches in diameter, Gutierrez said. The wildlife underpasses cost about $7.5 million, he said.
Think of these underground passageways as wildlife walkways, allowing mountain lions, coyotes, bobcats, deer, as well as bats and endangered bird species, to safely travel back and forth between their native chaparral habitat, looking for nourishment or a mate.
“Within the last year we’ve had a mountain lion and a bobcat killed on the highway — Route 60,” said Paul Gonzales, wildlife biologist with Gonzales Environmental Consulting, based in San Jacinto, which was hired by Skanska.
“We want to make sure that they do have a way to cross safely so they don’t get killed on the highway,” Gonzales said.
For instance, some animals may want to get a drink from San Mateo Creek on the north side of the freeway, or from Mystic Lake on the south side. Or, male mountain lions may use the crossings to find females living on the other side, Gonzales said, adding that coyotes and bobcats also are typically on the prowl looking for food.
Some smaller drainage pipes built in 1935 have been used by larger mammals to get to the other side safely, he said. But some animals don’t know of their existence and end up being hit by vehicles while trying to cross the freeway. Gonzales, who helped build underpasses between Chino Hills State Park and the Prado Dam area, is sure pumas and bobcats will use the larger, concrete box underpasses.
One of the two was completed in April. The other will be finished by the end of this month, Gutierrez said.
Both sections of hills have water, grasslands and trees for camouflage and food. The issue is the thousands of cars and trucks going 60mph or more between them.
Instead of darting across the lanes, fencing will direct the animals to the sub-surface culverts and concretebox underpasses.
“They will follow the fence and see the opening, instead of jumping over it,” Gonzales said. “They will notice the crossings, especially when they see daylight on the other side.”
He anticipates birds that often fly too low and smash into car windshields will use the crossings as well. Swallows, even the least Bell’s vireo and southwestern willow flycatcher, both listed as endangered species by federal environmental agencies, will use the passageways.
His team of biologists found nesting pairs of southwestern willow flycatchers and vireos in the conservation area just north of the freeway project. These are protected from earth-moving equipment during construction, he said.
Little brown myotis bats, a mouse-eared microbat and cave bats have been found in the old culverts. Gonzales expects them to migrate to the larger culverts and wildlife box-crossings once completed.
“The males go off and find their own places to hang out,” he said. “They use the culverts for day roosting.”
The project currently doesn’t include installing motion-sensor cameras in the crossings, but those could be installed later by biologists who’ll want to see what animals are using the crossings and at what rate.
Wildlife crossings are becoming more common in Southern California. The first was built under Harbor Boulevard in La Habra in 2006, used by bobcats, deer, skunks and raccoons to connect to two sides of the Puente-Chino Hills. In September 2018, an overpass just for animals was built over the Clinton Keith Road in Murrieta. The concrete portion was blanketed with soil and natural scrub grasses to entice animals to cross, including the Quino checkerspot butterfly.
Two others, one that would transverse the lanes of the 15 Freeway south of the Temecula Creek Bridge in Riverside County, and one planned over the 101Freeway in Agoura Hills in Los Angeles County, would allow cross-breeding of mountain lion populations cut off by major freeways.
Gonzales said the crossings beneath the 60 Freeway truck lanes will have concrete bottoms. But that won’t prevent the animals from using them.
“In this case they are concrete, but the mammals will be using these concrete-bottom pathways because they are flat and easy to maneuver through,” he said. “They do need safe crossings.”