More California Waste: Overpass for Wildlife Behind Schedule, Way Over Budget
It should have been finished in 2025 and is $21 million over budget. On brand for California.
Can California do anything right? The failed bullet train. Failure to prevent wildfires. Failure to rebuild after the Palisades fire.
Now we have the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing (WAWC).
Newsom broke ground on the crossing in 2022 to help protect wildlife and people in Southern California, with an estimated cost of $92 million.
At the time, the state committed $54 million for the project while Newsom promised to “complete the job within another $10 million.”
Officials projected completion by 2025.
It’s March 2026, and no one has finished the bridge. Why not? Because Trump, of course! From City Journal:
Nearly four years after the ceremony, the bridge is past due and the project some $21 million over budget. What was supposed to be the world’s largest wildlife crossing has become a jobs program for environmentalists, with taxpayers on the hook for what WAWC leader Beth Pratt told us is an overpass “for everything from monarch butterflies to mountain lions.”
Pratt, a cougar-sweater-wearing environmental activist who serves on WAWC’s Partner Leadership Team, is the program’s public face. She is also a regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation. In 2021, the group received a $25 million grant from “Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation” for the bridge that bears the late philanthropist’s name.
That money apparently was not enough. This past January, donning a hard hat and a “#SAVELACOUGARS” jersey, Pratt announced a possible $21 million overage. She effectively blamed President Trump, attributing the multimillion-dollar overrun to “tariffs, inflation, [and] labor problems.”
“There’s no boondoggle,” she said. “Given the times we’re living in,” a potential $21 million overage is “not that bad.”
Um, Trump has only been in office since January 2025. What happened between 2022 and mid-January 2025?
The California Transportation Commission handed the project $18.8 million after Pratt’s announcement.
That means the project’s budget hit $114 million, with $77 million coming from taxpayers.
Look, I’m all for these wildlife crossings. It saves animals and people by preventing them from crossing highways where cars travel at high speeds.
Many of those locations lack street lamps, hampering drivers’ visibility at night.
But holy moly.
The latest press release, issued on February 2, claimed California is “closing in on completing” the bridge.
Uh, okay. Great. You’re still over budget and a year behind schedule.
Colorado built this wildlife overpass last year for $15 million. It’ll pay for itself within five years from the avoided collisions.
California spending $114 million on a failed wildlife overpass is absurd. https://t.co/AmOr9LDpFW pic.twitter.com/K8vh9LTpoZ
— Benji Backer (@BenjiBacker) March 18, 2026
In Washington, there’s a wildlife bridge as well as a nearby, specially designed underpass on I-90 in the Snoqualmie area. It was built several years ago on time and under cost. It’s been a Godsend to wildlife and vehicles. Hells bells, if WA can do it, why can’t California?
— andrea🌻 (@NWlady28) March 19, 2026
Wildlife bridges are 100% a good thing. California’s corruption and inability to complete them should not blind us to this fact, but enrage us at their ineptitude. https://t.co/sOZzAvbxzc
— Sandy Petersen 🪔 (@SandyofCthulhu) March 18, 2026
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
Google Gemini states that information regarding Pratt’s NWF salary isn’t publicly available. I’m sure it’s in the high six-figures; par for the course for Dhimmi-crat hustlers who are peddling their “green”/environmental hustle.
I always supported the wildlife outfits because I thought they did some good. When I was in college getting a degree in wildlife biology I met with quite a number of the local leaders and saw what was going on. They didn’t care as much for the animals as they did getting grants, donations and tv spots to keep the money rolling in. It was quite eye opening. The last real good one in charge I met was the northern Arizona head of Greenpeace. She was only interested in making sure everyone like ranchers, loggers etc followed the law and didn’t destroy stuff.
agree with this sentiment but my dealings with people who are also truly interested in doing the right thing fall victim to the ends justify the means in regards to why tax money should fund their cause(s)
and thats exactly how and why we are 38 trillion in debt
and how its the people that have worked hard to not be in debt are going to suffer with those who justify or just outright want socialism
Stupid Pratt needs to learn from MI, where we have things like deer crossing signs, so the animals know where it’s safe to cross.
The Newsom Miracle. Coming soon nationwide.
Newsolini’s Miracle; AKA, “The Great Leap Backward.”
In 1987, a neighboring town (Amherst, MA) built two small tunnels under a road to help prevent migrating salamanders from getting squished by cars as they moved to spawning grounds. Prior to that, locals formed a bucket brigade to carry them across the road. I don’t know what the cost was, but the project gained national attention–there was even a local band called Salamander Crossing. Some years they even close the road if too many of the critters are failing to use the portals. Somehow, I’m okay with that.
Wildlife bridges are 100% a good thing. California’s corruption and inability to complete them should not blind us to this fact, but enrage us at their ineptitude.
——-
I’m 100% believing this is a good thing
But anytime you don’t have a clause that of you don’t finish by six a date your company will be fined
It will cost 10x and still not be done.
They do this in Scandinavia countries I believe
You’d be amazed at how many East Coast airports employ guys with suppressed high powered rifles and NV gear to eliminate deer from runways at night. Because of modern agriculture, there are way more deer in America now than when the Pilgrims arrived. Drive across PA in the Fall and you will see a red splotch on the highway about every mile or two. Just like the Homeless, their solutions serve only to make the problem worse.
was the overpass going to be right next to the
lounge for tigers and bears???
all fronts to steal /launder money
where does the money reallyyy go ??
how many overseas trips and nights at the roxy are paid for with this continued leftist buffoonery????
how do socialists become so wealthy by theft and not get arrested??
the gop lets it go b/c they are in on this
trump for the m fn win!!!
The original estimate for the bridge was $92 million. Newsome kicked in $54 million and promised it would take only $10 million more to finish. My math is rusty but that’s about 30% under budget which should have been a giant red flag to anyone as when did anything get built in California under budget and under time?
next find??
500000000 usd’s on how to teach bears to put out fires
so that the new female smoky the bear can take her place on the hollywood walk of (sh)fame
California has spent longer building this this wildlife bridge so cougars don’t interbreed than they did to build the Golden Gate Bridge. Think about that for a second. One bridge across an interstate still isn’t open when they built a suspension bridge across an entire bay.
It demonstrates how inept the governance of CA is. Not just the leadership but the institutional hurdles of the bureaucracy, the unions, the NGOs, various extra layers of permission needed from ‘commissions’. All of that is preventing even honest, good faith efforts to complete a project.. When the cronyism and sinecure holders put their hands out as well they can’t get things accomplished on time or under budget.
“Can California do anything right?”
When your definition of “right” is keeping unbounded tax money flowing into the pockets of crony contributors in the construction industry, they’ve been doing everything right for years.
$15 million for the I-25 overpass is too much. The wildlife also can’t read the signage directing them to the crossing.
The wildlife also can’t read the signage directing them to the crossing.
The useless CA education system fails again. But no doubt the wildlife know all about “multi-genderism.”
This stuff makes my head spin. CA can’t take care of its homeless or prevent crime yet it spends 10s of millions on a wildlife overpass it still can’t complete, Definite union job here.
This is yet another example of a government doing something no government should do. Stick to basic services idiots and get those right for once. Forget anything else. I don’t want to pay for it.
The way to build such an overpass is for some NGO to raise the funds from the public and then build it when you have enough. Stop stealing my money so you can virtue signal.
How luxurious does a bridge for wildlife need to be?? And wouldn’t most animals prefer an underpass to an overpass?
In the one-horse town next to my one-horse town, there was a “wildlife” overpass for pedestrians crossing US 20, which at the time was one lane in each direction, despite being the major Phoenix/Vegas artery, You had to walk up a ramp the width of the highway AWAY from the highway, turn around and walk across the bridge three times the width of the highway, then walk down the highway-width ramp on the other side, OF COURSE nobody used it… they’d just time the traffic and run across the highway (aided by the safety of a comfortable median). Including the kids getting from the “center of town” to the grade school on the other side of 60. Since there was also a crossroad there, there was a stoplight adjacent to the bridge, but people couldn’t be bothered to use the pushbutton.
Then 20 years ago US 60 was widened to four lanes. The bridge was demolished. The stoplight was preserved. The people still run across. I’ve never heard of a single injury or fatality from that intersection.
Aargh… US 60, not 20.
There is one of these bridges in Washington state over I-90
I caught a X yesterday describing this overpass as a great pathway for local cougars (not the human kind) to travel to a residential area with cats, dogs and young children.
Of course, the price tag is based on a 80% mark up to pay all the cronies who claim to be consultants.
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