Earlier this week, we talked about the impact of collisions on the roads involving cars, trucks and animals, mostly deer. Virginia has been studying what has become a growing problem and has come up with some interesting conclusions. Researchers found that most techniques to scare off the deer, like deer whistles, deer reflectors and deer flags, don’t work. Deer repellents and intercept feeding (that’s what I call it when I pull into a Checkers drive-through) can be successful but only on a small scale. Here’s a shocker: Those signs along the road with the picture of a deer on them don’t seem to do a great deal either.
The only two things that this study found to be effective in reducing the number of deer-vehicle collisions are to put up fencing to block the animal’s ability to cross in certain areas and the creation of animal crossings.
The latter is an innovative way to use existing box culverts and underpasses to get animals to the other side of the road. When combined, these two techniques reduced the number of roadkills in one study by 96 percent. The problem with fencing alone is that it tends to fragment the animal’s habitat and change the way they forage and breed.
PORCARI TO RETURN?
Could John Porcari, the former Maryland secretary of transportation, be returning tothat job under Gov.-elect Martin O’Malley? His name keeps coming up as a candidate for the position and, if it’s true, it would be a brilliant move on O’Malley’s part. Having someone in the position who can hit the ground running will allow the new governor to focus on other things.
A good deal of credit for the smooth contracting and construction of the Wilson Bridge can be attributed to Porcari, although his tenure was somewhat tarnished by wheels that kept falling off MTA buses in and around Baltimore. Porcari was also challenged by working under Gov. Parris Glendening, who was openly against any road construction and didn’t seem to have the money to build or expand any rail projects.
SHINING LIGHT ON METRO
Linda writes: “I know I read somewhere recently that Metro was going to work harder at replacing burned out lighting in the stations. What is the status of this effort? The upper level platform at the Pentagon station is now very dark. It is pretty much impossible to read while waiting for a train, but even more important is safety at this very busy station.”
Rest assured that something will get done here. A number of Metro employees use that station and have told me that they have noticed the same problem. In fact, they tell me that they have contacted the maintenance people about getting the issue resolved. The only problem for us is that we don’t have a time frame for its completion.
Questions, comments, random musings? Write to [email protected].
