Atlantic Industries Limited (AIL) was pleased to have been selected to help design and manufacture wildlife overpasses for the current phase of the Trans-Canada Highway twinning project in Banff National Park. Two large structures have been constructed using our Super•Cor High Profile Arches and Vist-A-Wall MSE Structural Wall System with Precast Concrete Panels.

Banff is a world leader in wildlife crossings with wildlife-vehicle collisions being reduced by more than 80% and, for elk and deer alone, by more than 96%. No other location in the world has as many and varied types of wildlife crossings.

With a successful project pedigree spanning over 40 years and a few continents, AIL is becoming known as a world leader in the design and manufacture of efficient wildlife crossing solutions. Choosing AIL to partner on such a high-profile project with a world-leading authority like Banff is an example of natural selection within the Canadian transportation infrastructure 'herd'.

The Banff highway-twinning project has occurred in stages since 1981, with over half of the 83 km highway section in the park already upgraded. These improvements will maximize motorist safety, reduce highway wildlife mortality and habitat fragmentation, and improve the flow of goods and services along this busy Bow Valley corridor. The current 9 km Phase, surrounding Lake Louise, features two overpass structures, each with twin Super•Cor Arches approximately 65 m long, with a span of 15 m and a rise of 8 m. This phase of the project was started in the summer of 2008 and completed in the late fall of 2009, despite a challenging schedule and difficult weather.
 

Banff also has the world's longest, year-round monitoring program and largest data set on wildlife use of highway crossings. In fact, eleven species of large mammals have used Banff 's wildlife crossings more than 183,000 times since 1996 (as of January 2009). This includes: grizzly and black bears; wolves; coyotes; cougars; moose; elk; deer; bighorn sheep, and more recently; wolverine and lynx. Monitoring is already detecting use of the recently-completed crossings by several species.

Click here to learn more about the Banff Wildlife Crossings initiative >

Other AIL Wildlife Crossings >