This paper was presented at the `Environmental management planning for sustainable transportation' session. This paper describes how sustainable highway engineering improvements have been developed or adopted to mitigate the unique environmental impact highways and roads have within Canadian Rocky Mountain National Parks that are also World Heritage Sites. Three levels of sustainable highway development are presented. The first is the reconstruction or rehabilitation of existing park roads. The second is the development of the passing lane system on the Trans Canada Highway in the Rocky Mountain Parks. The third example is the twinningof 18.6 kilometres of the Trans Canada Highway. The paper describes how highway engineering improvements were developed to address and mitigate numerous potential project impacts identified during environmental assessment. Included within the environmental mitigations were a series of measures such as fencing and animal crossing structures and underpasses to address wildlife movement, biodiversity and mortality as well as stream, terrain, and vegetation disturbance minimization techniques. Research has found that the mitigation measures have been effective in reducing wildlife/vehicle collisions by 97%. (A)
Abstract