To the 300,000 drivers who stream through Agoura Hills on the 101 Freeway every day, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing looks relatively unchanged from last summer, except for some leggy native shrubs growing along the outer walls.

While activity seems to have halted on what is touted to be the world’s largest wildlife crossing, there’s been lots of slow, expensive work at the site that’s hard to spot from the freeway, said Robert Rock, chief executive of Chicago-based Rock Design Associates and the landscape architect overseeing the project. This includes:

• Moving power lines, water lines and other utilities underground — at a cost of nearly $20 million — along the south side of the crossing.
• Drilling at least 140 deep holes along 175 feet of Agoura Road and filling them with concrete to create the foundation for the tunnel over the frontage road. The tunnel will support roughly 3 million cubic feet of soil connecting the south side of the crossing to the Santa Monica Mountains, roughly enough soil to fill half of SoFi Stadium, Rock said.
• Reworking some of the project’s nonwildlife-centered designs to reduce ballooning construction costs. For instance, an underground tunnel that would have permitted utility companies to drive in and check on their equipment has been reduced to a large conduit just big enough for wires and cables to be easily pulled through.

Rock and Beth Pratt, California regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation and leader of the Save LA Cougars campaign, led a tour on top of the crossing during a sunny day last week to discuss the status of the long-awaited project, whose completion date was originally scheduled for the end of 2025.

Read the rest at: https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2026-01-26/la-wallis-annenberg-wildlife-crossing-is-on-track-for-november-opening