Friday, May 24, 2013

Colo. Road Project - $46 million to protect wildlife



Local groups and governments are emptying their piggy banks trying to find any available money to contribute to a 10-mile safety-improvement project on Highway 9 in Grand County. Their cash is crucial to getting the plan approved. High Country stakeholders have to put up 20 percent of the project’s $46 million bill to qualify for Colorado Department of Transportation funding. The owner of the Blue Valley Ranch near Kremmling, billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Jones, contributed $4 million to the match last month, leaving a local citizens’ group with $4 million left to raise from the public and local stakeholders before CDOT’s deadline for project applications next month. The project aims to resolve an ongoing problem with wildlife-related accidents on the rural highway north of Silverthorne with roadside fencing and a series of under and overpasses that will allow animals to safely cross the highway and access a critical water source. The proposal also calls for the road to be expanded with wider shoulders and room for bicycle lanes. The improvements, the result of a collaboration between CDOT and the Division of Parks and Wildlife, are designed to increase safety on one of the more dangerous stretches of road in the region. In the last 20 years, 16 humans and hundreds of animals have been killed in collisions on the segment Hwy. 9 through Grand County...more

Nope, that's not the way to save human lives, or better the life for some humans.

--Instead of building the overpass build some deer stands.
--Declare open season.
--Sell special hunting licenses.
--Take the $46 million plus the license fees and use it to help the poor and disabled.

For safety reasons they trap and kill wildlife at airports all the time.  Why not on highways?

This would just be another "thinning project", so grab your guns, save lives and help the less fortunate all in one fell swoop.

Yeehaw!!


 

2 comments:

Danne said...

OOPs! It's Colorado...you just can't "grab your guns" anymore! Guns are bad, they took them away from the Colorado folks. YeeHaw!

Tick said...

I've seen underpasses for wildlife. I guess the overpass idea is to prevent the homeless (2 or 4 legged) from taking up residence. Have gun, will travel.