The Environment Gets the Right-of-Way: "... While they may not seem like a lot of space, ROWs collectively account for nearly 10,000,000 acres of land in the U.S....".

• Author: Whitney, Kaitlin Stack
• Position: EYE ON ECOLOGY

WHEN you are riding or driving down a highway, you may notice that there often is a grassy area running alongside the road. This area is known as the right-of-way (ROW). How ROWs are managed long has been critical to improving road and roadside safety for drivers and passengers--and, while they may not seem like a lot of space, ROWs collectively account for nearly 10,000,000 acres of land in the U.S., larger than the states of Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island.

Even if you rarely have given them a second thought as you pass them on the highway or thruway, transportation planners and policymakers are beginning to consider roadside ROWs a critical tool for solving big problemslike climate change and the rural broadband gap. In 2021, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released guidance for states endorsing alternative uses of highway ROWs to create revenue, green jobs, and other benefits. Likewise, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 makes explicit connections between such investments in transportation infrastructure and environmental quality. Roadside ROWs are the land on either side of the road, including the shoulder and the vegetation beyond. Sometimes the edge of the property line of the ROW is marked with a fence or visible with a tree line. Who owns the ROW depends on who owns and manages that specific road. Highways are owned and managed by states; so are highway ROWs. Other kinds of ROWs also exist for railroads, canals, and other transportation infrastructure. Utilities also often have associated ROW areas, including transmission lines and gas pipelines.

Highway and other roadside ROWs serve several critical functions. They are designed for road safety, allowing visibility for drivers and the ability to pull off the road, such as being pulled over by law enforcement or to change a flat tire. This provides what is known as a "clear zone" or safety zone, an open area next to the highway that allows a driver to regain control of a car that inadvertently leaves the road, reducing collisions. FHWA data indicates that more than half of collisions resulting in a fatality involve a vehicle that leaves the roadway. Roadside ROWs also are designed for drainage, so that water flows away from the highway and does not create standing water that would be a driving hazard.

Facilitating these crucial services requires managing roadside ROW habitats. For instance, the clear zone should not have tall vegetation to better ensure driver safety in the case of vehicle breakdowns or collisions and so that animals, such as deer, would be visible to drivers before they entered the road, potentially helping avoid wildlife collisions. Additionally, trees should not be close enough to the road to have overhanging limbs, to avoid branches falling onto the road or shading that could cause icy patches in winter.

Some of these roadside design elements are required by Federal law. Additional regulations also exist on a state-by-state basis and often are codified in state-level design manuals published by state departments of transportation. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has an extensive set of guidance for the design choices that go into state highway ROW design. For example, New York's Department of Transportation has a Highway Design Manual with a specific chapter on roadside design.

Highway ROWs also include property beyond the required safety zone. The Washington Department of Transportation calls these areas the "selective management zone" and "natural zone"--vegetated areas beyond the clear zone that historically were mowed and aesthetically managed like lawns. These are the areas that states now are considering managing in other ways.

Given how many roads there are in the U.S., all this land in roadside ROWs adds up. There are more than 1200,000 miles of roads in the U.S. Of those, about 600,000 miles are highways and other major roads managed by states. State departments of transportation are in charge of managing several different kinds of roads, including state highways, as well as interstates. In rum, this means that they are responsible for managing enormous amounts of habitat, in addition to roads.

County highways and local roads are managed by municipal highway departments. It is estimated that county road agencies in the U.S. are...