Salamander Crossing
Created | Updated Nov 14, 2011
Amherst, Massachusetts is famous for its Salamander Crossing, a pair of approx. 6" diameter tunnels running under Henry Street that were constructed at significant public cost.
These tunnnels are supposed to allow an endangered salamander species to make its annual pilgrimage from winter to summer habitat. The spring migration occurs during the first warm rain of each year, and the tunnels are supposed to make obsolete the throngs of environmentally conscious yellow-slickered flashlight-wielding crossing-guards who escort the salamanders across one by one.
Fortunately for the earnest and insufficiently busy, the salamanders aren't fully clear on the concept of 'tunnel', so the slickered flashlighted guards continue their patrol.
A local bluegrass band named Salamander Crossing has been sighted as far away as New Jersey, and appears to have better long-term survival prospects than the salamanders to which they owe their name.