reindeer crossings and my desire to put beards on bridges

 There's  nothing new about the concept of bridges for animals. From motorway stock bridges to wildlife crossings from reindeer ("renoducts")  to green bridges for grizzly bears, to naturbrugge for wild boar and red deer. They exist and they make the long dark wall of a motorway or an interstate feel less barrier-like, less vast. But natural movement erodes a bottleneck. Could something this narrow cope with wildlife at undepleted levels? A herd would not interpret this as a safe space. 

Lots of people are looking at the problem. Meet Saferoad, whose manifesto is straightforward:

• prevent wildlife mortality due to animal-vehicle collisions;
• assure that the barrier effect of roads is reduced sufficiently to maintain viable wildlife populations, such as the construction of wildlife crossing structures

They're researching it, by the way. Not doing it. Wagendingen University are also on the case:

"It is still unclear how effective wildlife bridges and other wildlife crossings are, and whether recreational use of wildlife bridges can be combined with a function as a wildlife crossing."

Also researching it, not doing it. But plenty of people are drawing green lines across the grey of road barriers. It's the next logical stop after the signs telling us to watch out for wildlife crossing. 

Green painted bridge over a dual carriageway. 

Bridges are expensive. I've had many a conversation with a despairing colleague who is being batted back again and again as as they try to argue that humans need a bridge out of their road-bounded no-facilities new-build estates. Footbridges: too expensive, insufficiently accessible, not absolutely necessary and therefore dropping off the end of the job list. 

Risky, too, those bleak open spaces above the zooming traffic. I once saw a kid up on one exuberantly flossing at the traffic height of the Fortnite craze and what if I hadn't caught the cultural reference? What then?

If only there were a way to combine the wildlife bridge and the human bridge, while making both safer, less bleakly open to the noise and space, while keeping the bulk of animals away from our favourite terrifying carnivorous ape, the human being. If only there were some way to bring more funding and kudos onto the act of building bridges, and stop them being the job you give the least civil engineer, the architect on the bottom of the monkey tree....

Which brings me to the next proposition:

We really need bridge merkins. No, hear me out. Let's take another look at that bridge, or another, similar one (I photograph lots of bridges).

Slightly out of focus motorway footbridge with graffiti on retaining wall

We're looking up from underneath at a space that could potentially hold a pathway. Let's suspend planters along the sides, down and out of reach of the scary humans or any road traffic above. Let's link them with a concealed, small safe space, a wildlife run. Let's make sure this is inaccessible to humans with a decent, high barrier above. It'll double as a trellis, further engaging the greenery and creating an insect-friendly route across the roadway.

Under-bridge planting trough and vegetation roughly photoshopped on underside of bridge 

As you can see in the image, water dripping down and vines hanging down might create hazards. However, the disturbance of traffic should keep the space clear, so bar a cut or two it should be as manageable as a rural road. 

Maybe it would be better to call them bridge beards. The alliteration works. They could work as a retrofit or a new build. They might even make bridges a calmer, cooler, quieter space to be and encourage more people (as well as animals) to take that walk to the far side of the tarmac ocean, to see what they can see.