Newsom’s Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing
California’s highway overpass for butterflies and cougars is late and over budget. Curious observers might trace the project to the beginning.
“No challenge poses a greater threat to our way of life, prosperity and future as a state than climate change” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom on April 22, 2022, Earth Day.
“With our rich natural heritage on the front lines of this crisis, California is building on,” Newsom said. “Our global climate leadership with bold strategies that harness the power of nature to fight climate change and protect our communities and ecosystems. Strong partnerships across the board will be critical to these efforts and the project we’re lifting up today is an inspiring example of the kind of creative collaborations that will protect our common home for generations to come.”
The project was the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing (WAWC) over US 101 in southern California. According to promoter Beth Pratt, the $92 million overpass will accommodate “everything from monarch butterflies to mountain lions.” Two years later, Gov. Newsom weighed in on the project.
“Our work to build more, faster is already paying dividends across our state,” the governor said. “This wildlife crossing is just one example of how California is building infrastructure that connects rather than divides. With projects like this, we’re reconnecting and restoring habitats so future generations can continue to enjoy California’s unmatched natural beauty.”
Gov. Newsom did not quantify the dividends the WAWC was already paying, and the project was not completed in 2025 as originally planned. In March, federal transportation secretary Sean Duffy flagged the project’s $21 million cost overrun and mocked the state’s “bridges to nowhere” and “trains to nowhere.” Newsom was quick to fire back.
“MAGA’s outrage over a project that literally SAVES LIVES tells you everything!” Gov. Newsom posted on X. “This freeway project, grounded in decades of research, restores a critical wildlife corridor and reduces DEADLY collisions on one of the busiest highways in the country — protecting both drivers and animals. FACT: The cost estimate held until last year when inflation — in part driven by TRUMP’s TARIFFS — increased construction costs. The increase is vastly LOWER than the 67% national average increase in highway construction costs. FACT: The timeline shifted by just ONE YEAR largely due to severe weather last year — five years of work is far from a ‘boondoggle.’”
The governor did not quantify the number of animal and human lives actually saved. As people across the nation should know, the WAWC is not an original concept.
In 1995, the city of Davis, California, constructed a tunnel under Pole Line Road to allow toads, frogs, and such to cross in safety. Davis mayor Jan Partanski supported the project which cost the city $12,000–14,000. The tunnel, dubbed “Toad Hollow,” led to a “toad town” on the other side, but local media could find no toads there. Neither could Stephen Colbert of The Daily Show, which ran a segment on the tunnel in 1998.
Last year, former Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning recalled the event, but could not number the toads or frogs who had used the tunnel. A ballpark figure would be zero, doubtless the same for cougars and butterflies on the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing. Gov. Newsom denies it’s a “boondoggle,” but the state has others.
In 1998, voters approved $9.95 billion for a high-speed rail network connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco at speeds of up to 220 mph. As UCLA economist Lee Ohanian noted in 2023, the Bakersfield-Merced route alone would cost more than $35 billion. The bullet train was “a fantasy from its inception” and “the only reasonable decision is to end a project that should never have begun.”
The projected cost soared to $135 billion and last year the Trump administration cut off federal funding for the rail project. On Feb. 3, 2026, Gov. Newsom proclaimed:
With the completion of the Southern Railhead Facility, we’ve taken another critical step in the track-laying stage. California is building the nation’s first high-speed rail system, and we’re proving it can be done. We’re laying the foundation for cleaner, faster, and more connected transportation while investing in communities and creating good-paying jobs. California isn’t waiting for the future. We’re building it.
While riders await, consider also the new span of the Bay Bridge, built with Chinese labor and materials. The structure came in 10 years late, $5 billion over budget, and riddled with safety issues that could prove fatal in the next major earthquake. If anybody denies that it is a boondoggle, Californians have a butterfly-cougar overpass to sell them.
Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
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