Building Lightly On the Land

Building roads in rugged and challenging terrain is the forte of the planners, designers, and engineers of the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Federal Lands Highway Program (FLHP). This article provides an overview of the FLHP and highlights 7 of its recent projects. The program has a mission to build and maintain the transportation infrastructure that provides safe access to the Nation's natural wonders. Not only does it design roads for difficult terrain, it meets current safety and aesthetic standards while doing so. For 25 years, the FLHP has essentially served as a consulting engineering firm to Federal land management agencies. Although FHWA has managed the FLHP since the program's inception 25 years ago, FHWA's partnerships with other federal, state and local agencies have been key to the program's success. Just as each project often involves multiple partners, each also has its own personality. Understanding that character, respecting it, and then building a road in an environmentally sustainable way defines the work of the FLHP and its partners. The projects highlighted include: an island road in Alaska to connect Metlakatla, the only federally recognized Indian reservation in Alaska, to the ferry terminal on the northern tip of the island; an ongoing Hoover Dam Bypass project, which will build an improved highway around the Hoover Dam and a new Colorado River crossing; a major improvement project for Saddle Road, the most direct cross-island route for public and commercial traffic between eastern and western Hawaii; and completion of Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. Other projects highlighted in this article include: paving and widening the entrance road and visitor parking area to the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge in Texas; a monumental rehabilitation project to modernize the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana's Glacier National Park; and rehabilitation of the mountainous Beartooth Highway in Montana and Wyoming.