Connecting Green Spaces Within the Urban Grid

 

(Wildlife crossing, Balmori Associates)

Just how do plants and animals migrate between green spaces in urban and suburban areas? Providing adequate green corridors are always a troubling issue in community development. Urban infill and development continues to eat at most available green spaces. The extent of the problem is noticeable with amount of wildlife roadkill along highways and interstates. In Mississippi, which is a rural state, 3,400 deer-related crashes were reported by the Mississippi Highway Patrol in 2014. For years the state has remained in the top 10 national ranking of most wildlife accidents, which of course results in higher insurance premiums. Some states provide highway overpasses or underpasses in busy wildlife corridors, but many, like Mississippi, don't. Wyoming for example is spending $9.7 million to create roadway crossings for wildlife. Their main reason, they state, is safety (Transportation Nation). Wyoming Department of Transportation engineer stated "Take the $10,000 per property damage crash, and the value of deer around $3,000 based on Game and fish values, multiply that by 100 car cases and 20 or 30 property damage crashes and run that out over 20 years, and that's a significant amount of money" (Transportation Nation).

 (BIG)

A few years back, a city in Denmark looked at organizing a new development along a waterfront in the City of Holbaek that took the shape of a patchwork quilt. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the designers tried to create smaller intimate living spaces within a large area. Interestingly, they ended up with an organized series of green corridors  or ribbons that run through the dense urban space. If designed correctly, the labyrinth could provide interesting green spaces, while also providing safe wildlife corridors.