Progress marches on in the construction of what's soon to be the world's largest bridge solely for wildlife use. The Colorado Department of Transportation recently shared a significant update on the I-25 Greenland Wildlife Overpass, nestled between Larkspur and Monument. A substance to the claim of infrastructural triumph, the project has achieved its halfway mark, a milestone witnessed by none other than Senator Michael Bennet during his visit to the site on Friday.
"Crews hit the half-way milestone in building the world’s largest bridge structure for wildlife," according to CDOT in a social media post. Such an endeavor speaks to an underlying commitment to coexistence, as the overpass will serve as a conduit for critters great and small to traverse the human-made barriers that are the roads, reducing animal-vehicle collisions.
The ambitious tasks, splitting the project into before and after, revolve around erecting the bridge superstructure atop the girders. With the foundational piers and columns cemented in reality, and all 76 girders - 38 anchoring over each direction of I-25 - securely in place, the path forward becomes concrete, quite literally, including pouring the deck and connecting to abutments.
What lies ahead for this nearly acre-spanning overpass, at 200 feet wide and 209 feet long, is not merely an embodiment of human engineering. It also mirrors the intricacies of the ecological networks it's designed to protect. The final brush strokes to this functional piece of art are expected to be the application of wildlife-friendly landscaping and the erection of wildlife fencing. As planned, the outline will be filled in by late 2025, with the intricate details penned in by 2026, allowing animals, from moose to mountain lions and mule deer to pronghorn, to reclaim their right to roam.
