Can a simple road coating make DC’s hottest neighborhoods cooler?
D.C.’s Department of Transportation has launched a pilot program aimed at determining whether a simple coating over the road could help make some of the city’s hottest neighborhoods feel cooler.
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Late last month, with help from American University, DDOT launched its Cool Corridors pilot program, hoping to reduce extreme heat on city streets and help residents be more comfortable outside.
The agency has applied solar reflective pavement coatings at five locations that have been deemed urban heat islands, which are hotter than surrounding areas.
Sharon Kershbaum, director of D.C.’s Department of Transportation, said the locations were selected using a heat sensitivity index that considers areas prone to extreme heat due to surrounding pavement and sensitive communities.
They include Brightwood in Northwest, North Michigan Park in Northeast, Ivy City in Northwest, Benning in Northeast and the neighborhood west of Nationals Park in Southwest.
“The idea is that when you have a cooler surface, it doesn’t radiate as much heat back out, and that’s when humans start to hopefully feel the improvement,” said Mike Alonzo, an environmental science associate professor at American University.
At each location, the city is testing one of three cool pavement products that have been effective in warmer places, such as Phoenix, Austin and Orlando.
“When you’re standing on it in bright sunlight, you can feel it’s demonstrably cooler,” Kershbaum told WTOP. “We’ve found in other locations that have used this material, temperatures can be as much as 20 degrees cooler.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Alonzo and American University students evaluated “control” streets in Ivy City, using a tool he said that measures how much heat is “coming at a human body from all six directions.”
The students aren’t tied to any one class, he said, but instead are studying various disciplines and expressed interest in the work.
They’ll evaluate which pavement product does the best job cooling things off based on air temperature, surface temperature and mean radiant temperature.
“Imagine being a dog out here,” student Liam Garvin said. “You need shoes. Imagine being somebody, if you’re homeless and you’re not fortunate, and you don’t have shoes.”
Student Kevin Wetherell, meanwhile, said the urban heat island effect is “becoming more drastic. There’s a lot of research that needs to go into how we’re affecting the environment surrounding our cities.”
The pilot program will also determine whether the approach could be effective in a climate like D.C.’s. To apply the coating, the city closed down roads, cleared debris, and then it “looks just like they’re painting,” Kershbaum said.
A comparative report is expected by the end of the year, according to a news release.
The pilot will cost about $1 million for all five sites, Kershbaum said, and is mainly being paid for with grant funding.
“We are very hot in the cities, and getting hotter,” Alonzo said. “And a lot of the neighborhoods that we’re in are also marginalized communities that have low tree cover that need other strategies to cool things down.”
Emma Zink, an American University student, said she lived in Southeast Asia and felt the effects of urban heat, “and moving here, I thought that it would be a different experience, but the heat is very much present in my life here as well.”
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