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Beyond the preventative and reactive, there is also great potential for state DOTs to become proactive stewards in roadside management. In many regions, roadsides provide some of the last vestiges of native habitat. Prairies and grasslands are our most highly imperiled native habitats. Roadsides offer excellent opportunities for restoring some components of the prairie ecosystem. Together, the Iowa Department of Transportation and the Roadside Management Program at the University of Northern Iowa are making strides in restoring roadside prairies. In Iowa alone, where 98 percent of the native prairie habitat has been lost, the 600,000 acres of roadside habitat provide more area than all the state, county, and city parks combined.¹⁰

In 1988, the Living Roadway Trust Fund was established to provide funds for the development and implementation of Integrated Roadside Vegetation Management (IRVM) plans. The purpose of these plans is to preserve, plant, and maintain Iowa’s roadside vegetation so that roadways are safe, visually interesting, ecologically integrated, and useful for many purposes. On roadside projects, a minimum of 50 percent by count of newly planted trees and shrubs must be considered native to Iowa or be improved hardy cultivars of a native species. All grasses and forbs (plants and/or seeds) must be considered native to Iowa. Introduced species, other than annual grasses used specifically as cover crops, will not be funded.¹¹

Endnotes

10. Noss, Reed F. (Conservation Biology Institute) Restoring Grassland Ecosystems: An Opportunity to Save the Pieces. Available at: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/rdsduse/rd_use17.htm

11. Iowa’s Living Roadway Trust Fund, http://www.iowalivingroadway.com