Ohio DOT Distributing 13,000 Bicycle Helmets

This summer, the Ohio Department of Transportation will help distribute roughly 13,000 bicycle helmets to children statewide via the “Put A Lid On It” campaign – a statewide effort to get free bicycle helmets into the hands of kids who need them.

[Above photo by Ohio DOT]

With support from the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Ohio DOT, and American Honda Motor Company, the campaign is providing those helmets to 179 organizations in 61 counties across Ohio through pediatricians’ offices, local health departments, police and fire stations, schools, and many other community partners.

Since the program began in 2011, more than 100,000 helmets have been donated to help protect children while they ride bicycles, Ohio DOT noted.

Along with the helmets, groups receive bike safety training materials and guidance on how to properly fit helmets on children’s heads – making it easier for families to keep kids protected every time they ride a bike.

“Ohio DOT plays a key role in improving bicycle safety, from providing funding and other support to construct safe routes for bicyclists and pedestrians to supporting education and outreach,” said Ohio DOT Director Pamela Boratyn in a statement. “We’re proud to support the ‘Put A Lid On It’ campaign—it helps make helmet-wearing as routine as buckling a seatbelt and builds lifelong habits of safe riding.”

According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, there were 1,337 bicycle-related crashes in the state in 2024, with 23 resulting in a fatality and 189 causing serious injuries.

Beyond this bike helmet program, Ohio DOT noted it also works with communities across Ohio to support active transportation through planning, education, and funding – part of a broader effort to help make it safer and easier for people of all ages to walk and bike where they need to go.

Environmental News Highlights – May 7, 2025

How TxDOT Preserved a Grove of Historic Trees

Six years ago, construction crews were preparing to remove a set of trees from alongside a highway project overseen by the Texas Department of Transportation. That is, until the agency learned that these weren’t just any trees; they were clones of the famous “Treaty Oak” in Austin, TX.

[Above photo by TxDOT] 

Located in Treaty Oak Park in Austin’s West Line Historic District, the roughly 500-year-old “Treaty Oak” is the last living member of the Council Oaks; a grove of 14 trees that served as a sacred meeting place for Comanche and Tonkawa tribes.

Yet, as crews prepared to remove a grove of trees by a house along the US 281 Relief Route near Premont, TX, in 2019, TxDOT received a letter indicating that those trees were cuttings from the actual Treaty Oak made by local arborist Wash Storm, known as the “King of the Live Oaks.”

He made those cuttings after the poisoning of the original Treaty Oak in 1989 in act of vandalism – viewing the cuttings as a way to keep this piece of “living history” alive in some form.

“These trees are what I would consider to be one of the smaller stories that kind of make up Texas history,” noted Kimberly Amy, a TxDOT environmental project planner, in a recent blog post.

“So this is one of those smaller stories that I believe should be saved, should be retold,” Amy said. “Because you’re talking about someone that had an incredible amount of integrity and was selfless and wanted future generations to enjoy heritage trees. And we need people like that.”

Fortunately, the real Treaty Oak tree in Austin survived its poisoning – something that wasn’t expected when Storm planted his grove of Treaty Oak clones. [Incidentally, the vandal – Paul Cullen – was apprehended shortly after reportedly bragging about poisoning the tree to cast a spell. He was convicted of felony criminal mischief and sentenced to serve nine years in prison.]

However, even located far away from their biological parent, the cloned trees thrived in South Texas. And, after hearing about the historical significance of these cloned trees, TxDOT’s project team found a way to save them – shifting the new road and building a wall to protect them.

“We understood that this was something that was going to be important,” Amy said. “And I’m very proud [that TxDOT] was responsive to the fact that this was important to the community.”

Across the country, state departments of transportation are involved in a variety of efforts to preserve not only local history but local cultures as well.

For example, archaeologists with the Maryland Department of Transportation recently showed off a trove of “interesting artifacts” found at the Ben Ross home historical dig site; the place where the father of Civil War-era abolitionist Harriet Tubman lived and where she spent her teenage years in Dorchester County.

The agency said its archaeologists spent the past four years processing hundreds of artifacts collected from the Ross home, which is deep in the wetlands of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

In August 2024, the North Carolina Department of Transportation – in partnership with N.C. State University’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education – launched a two-year project aimed at mapping unmarked burial sites belonging to historically marginalized groups statewide.

In October 2022, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet helped establish a new website highlighting more than 100 prehistoric and historic archaeological sites across the state’s 64 counties. The agency launched that website – Discover Kentucky Archaeology – in collaboration with the Kentucky Heritage Council-State Historic Preservation Office, an agency of the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet.

Additionally, in January 2022, the Colorado Department of Transportation debuted a documentary called “Durango 550 – Path of the Ancestral Puebloans” to show how the agency worked with archaeologists and regional Native American tribes to document, study, and ultimately share the discoveries unearthed near Durango in southwest Colorado.

Podcast: Michigan DOT Details Wildlife Crossing Efforts

On a recent episode of the “Talking Michigan Transportation” podcast, the Michigan Department of Transportation and Michigan Department of Natural Resources discussed efforts to implement a pilot program for analyzing wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) and how to design safer roadway crossing infrastructure for wildlife.

[Above image by Michigan DOT]

Amanda Novak, a resource specialist in Michigan DOT’s Bay Region, discussed how the agency plans to use a recently awarded $476,000 federal grant to fund a WVC-prevention pilot program. She previously spoke about that grant award on the podcast in September 2024.

As laid out in the project abstract for the grant, the number of WVCs in Michigan continues to increase annually, worsening risks and costs to drivers. For example, white-tailed deer alone account for more than 55,000 WVCs and cost motorists an average of $130 million per year in Michigan. Additionally, WVCs are a major threat to many wildlife populations in the state, including documented impacts on several threatened and endangered species.

[Editor’s note: The video below from the New Mexico Department of Transportation explains the role wildlife crossings play in the protection both animals and the traveling public.]

“We are going to be looking at white-tailed deer across the state. There’s [also] one location we’ll be looking at elk crossings,” Novak said on the podcast. “In the UP [Michigan’s upper peninsula], a location we’ll be studying moose, black bear, wild turkeys, and the pine marten. Now, the pine marten falls in kind of that smaller species that doesn’t have as the impact on with wildlife-vehicle collisions, or on motorist safety, but collisions with these animals affects their population sizes. So that’s the pine marten, rattlesnakes, and the Blanding’s turtle specifically.”

Novak said her hope where this pilot project is concerned is that it encompasses all of Michigan DOT’s roadway corridors and figures out how to manage them for all species. “Not just looking at just these larger species where we have all the wildlife-vehicle collisions but mitigating for every [species] we can in those locations; managing all our corridors like this in some fashion,” she said.

Other state departments of transportation are involved in similar WVC mitigation efforts as well.

In October 2024, the California Department of transportation issued a Wildlife Connectivity Report that identifies more than 140 locations where roadways can be better integrated with the migration needs of animals statewide.

“Caltrans is seeking opportunities to better integrate our highway system with the state’s diverse natural environment” explained Tony Tavares, director of Caltrans, at the time.

“It is our responsibility to improve passageways for wildlife that live and migrate along our shared ecosystem, and remediation efforts highlighted in this report will help honor our goal to provide a world class transportation system that serves all people and respects the environment,” he said.

The Utah Department of Transportation recently outlined it’s nearly five-decade effort to mitigate WVCs statewide; a long-term effort by Utah DOT also included the recent development of The Utah Roadkill Reporter, which is a smartphone application introduced in 2022 that gets the public involved in reporting wildlife collisions.

And, in November 2023, the Wyoming Department of Transportation completed wildlife crossings built as part of its $15.1 million Dry Piney project.

The Dry Piney project – a joint effort between the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the Wyoming DOT – includes nine underpasses and 16.7 miles of eight foot-high fencing on both sides of Highway 189 in the western part of the state to protect big game animals, primarily mule deer.

Environmental News Highlights – April 30, 2025

AASHTO Comments on ‘Waters of United States’ Proposal

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recently commented on a request for information issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding its “Waters of the United States” or WOTUS rulemakings over the past several years.

[Above image by AASHTO]

In previous comment letters, AASHTO proposed a “definition” of WOTUS that would both provide “adequate protection” for aquatic resources while making that definition “easier and more straightforward” for the regulated community to understand and thus apply.

In this latest comment letter, AASHTO especially emphasized the need for WOTUS rules to contain “clear standards” to determine the jurisdictional status of roadside ditches, ensuring that the rule clearly excludes most roadside ditches from its regulatory requirements.

In practice, that means clearly defining terms such as “relatively permanent” and “continuous surface connection” in WOTUS rules. “The application of these definitions significantly affects compliance determinations of state departments of transportation and their ability to perform routine maintenance and project delivery,” AASHTO said in its comment letter.

AASHTO thus recommended that EPA adopt a scope and definition for “relatively permanent” and “continuous surface connection” that excludes roadside ditches and isolated stormwater drainage and management features as jurisdictional and WOTUS.

“These exclusions will provide state DOTs confidence and certainty in their Clean Water Act permits and compliance determinations for work in and around roadside ditches and other drainage features,” AASHTO said.

The organization also stressed that any action EPA take where WOTUS terminology is concerned be “clear, concise, and final,” as frequent changes, especially to WOTUS definitions, affect the ability of state DOTs to deliver transportation projects on time and on budget.

“Projects can span multiple years in development, and changing definitions can result in the need to revisit jurisdiction and lead to re-work of base plans, increasing cost and delaying ultimate construction,” AASHTO pointed out.

Maryland DOT Offering Bicycle Infrastructure Grants

The Maryland Department of Transportation is now accepting applications for up to $2 million worth of grant funding for bicycle infrastructure projects through May 26 statewide.

[Above photo by Maryland DOT]

The agency said that grant money is available through its Kim Lamphier Bikeways Network Grant Program, which focuses on local priorities for bicycle infrastructure improvements.

Projects can include improving and/or expanding trail connections, on-road bicycle facilities, and enhancing last-mile connections, Maryland DOT noted.

[Editor’s note: At the 2025 National Bike Summit March 11-13 in Washington, D.C., hosted by the League of American Bicyclists, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation provided a deep dive into the practical aspects of its new “Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities, 5th Edition,” know colloquially as the “AASHTO Bike Guide,” released in December 2024.]

Established in 2011 through the Maryland Transportation Trust Fund, the Kim Lamphier Bikeways Grant Program has funded 244 projects totaling $40.6 million to date, according to the agency.

In 2020, the Maryland General Assembly voted to rename the Bikeways Grant Program in Lamphier’s honor after the longtime bike advocate and conservationist passed away from cancer in 2019.

Maryland DOT said that state funding may be requested for up to 80 percent of a project’s reimbursable costs through this program, with the remaining 20 percent or more of eligible project costs remaining the responsibility of the applicants to fund via a local match.

This program may also be used to match federal funds from discretionary grant endeavors such as the Transportation Alternatives Program, the agency said.

In 2024 alone, Maryland DOT said its bikeways grant program helped complete 16 projects, including a one-mile segment of the Broadneck Peninsula Trail in Anne Arundel County, four “gap” improvements in the City of Baltimore and multiple bike and scooting parking stations in the City of College Park.

Environmental News Highlights – April 23, 2025

Maryland DOT Awards Tree-Planting Grant Funds

The Maryland Department of Transportation recently awarded more than $26,000 in state funded grants to support tree plantings in 12 communities.

[Above photo by the Maryland DOT]

That funding comes from the agency’s Urban Tree Program; part of a competitive initiative that focuses on increasing vegetation in areas impacted by the construction of transportation facilities.

The Maryland DOT noted that these grants are also available to communities affected by environmental justice issues or the “heat island effect,” which refers to urbanized communities that experience higher temperatures than outlying areas. Recipients can receive up to $5,000 in funding for tree plantings, with more available for pocket forest projects.

The agency said this round of funding will add 757 new trees statewide, advancing Maryland’s goal of planting five million trees by 2031.

[Editor’s note: The Maryland DOT’s State Highway Administration, in collaboration with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and Montgomery County’s Department of Transportation, recently started work on a $1.2 million stream remediation project in the Colesville area of Montgomery County that includes the planting of native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous vegetation.]

“Branches and limbs from Maryland’s native trees help protect the state and provide for stronger, safer and healthier communities,” said Maryland DOT Secretary Paul Wiedefeld in a statement.

“The Maryland DOT is proud to fund the state’s beautification with planting more White Oak, Blackgum, Eastern Redbud and other native trees,” he added. “These trees will grow tall and cool down temperatures in hot urban areas with ample amount of shade.”

The agency noted that its Urban Tree Grant Program has issued more than $165,000 to 62 projects across more than 50 communities since its launch in 2022, resulting in the planting of about 3,000 trees.

Michigan DOT Seeks Input on Active Transportation Plan

The Michigan Department of Transportation is currently seeking public input on a draft of its North Region Active Transportation Plan, which will highlight current and proposed nonmotorized connections throughout the northernmost 21 counties of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.

[Above photo by Michigan DOT]

The agency said it worked with the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments (NEMCOG), private firm Networks Northwest, and local communities throughout those 21 counties to develop this plan, which will formally “assemble” both current and future separated pathways, bike lanes, wide shoulders, sidewalk connections, and regional trails into a single system.

Michigan DOT said the current draft of the plan will be available through May 17 for public feedback.

The agency added that the overarching goal of this plan is to provide safe places for state residents and visitors to walk or bike; increase opportunities for improved health and wellbeing; access to recreational areas throughout the northern portion of lower Michigan; and spur the use of alternative forms of transportation for travel.

“This plan will be used to guide decision-making and development of future active transportation facilities,” said Heidi Phaneuf, Michigan DOT’s North Region planner, in a statement.

“We are thankful for the support of all the trail groups, local governments, transportation agencies and tribal partners that helped in the development of this plan – sharing their visions that were woven together into this document,” she noted.