Los Angeles: Cool°Streets LA

The Cool°Streets LA initiative is designed to help teach Los Angeles residents about the benefits of sustainable behavior change as the city works toward becoming carbon-neutral by 2030. 

With a laid-back vibe and abundant sunshine year-round, Los Angeles has long been a Mecca for Americans looking for a better quality of life. But with climate change, all of that sunshine has come at a cost.

The city is experiencing a greater number of extreme heat days (when the peak temperature exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit). In some of its hottest neighborhoods, the number of annual extreme heat days is expected to double in the next 20 years.

Enter “Cool°Streets LA,” part of an initiative of the Empowerment Institute, a global training and consulting organization devoted to achieving measurable and sustainable behavior change for a better planet. The Empowerment Institute has been working on empowering American cities, including Los Angeles, to become carbon-neutral by 2030. 

Cool°Streets LA was launched in 2019 to lower the temperatures in L.A.’s warmest neighborhoods by adding 2,000 trees and 60 miles of cool pavement to increase the city’s tree canopy and lower road temperatures by up to 15 degrees F. 

North Hollywood Mayor Eric Garcetti points to a recent effort to apply reflective coating to a section of Los Angeles Avenue as an example of the city’s climate change battle.

“The skyrocketing temperatures of our streets is an equity issue that puts local communities on the front line of the climate crisis,” he says. “Our hottest and most vulnerable neighborhoods are our top priority when it comes to climate action. [Cool°Streets LA] is about taking action in ways that will make a direct impact on people’s lives.”

Reflective gray paint creates cooler pavements with surfaces that reflect heat and do not absorb as much of the sun’s energy as traditional black pavement.

CoolSeal gray, initially developed by California-based asphalt coating manufacturer GuardTop in conjunction with the defense industry, is being applied in Los Angeles’ most vulnerable neighborhoods. As of 2023, 175 lane miles have been coated, covering 600 street segments. 

Los Angeles is combating high temperatures in city neighborhoods by using reflective gray paint on asphalt that absorbs less of the sun’s energy vs. traditional black pavement and is therefore cooler to walk on. CREDIT: Courtesy of Empowerment Institute

According to the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services, approximately 10 percent of the city—about 69,000 city blocks—is asphalt. It believes that coating just one-third of the asphalt could help to reduce the average city temperature. The city is currently evaluating the cost of applying the coating on a large scale, which costs approximately $40,000 per mile and lasts about seven years.

An equally important component of Cool°Streets LA is planting trees for shade on neighborhood streets. The City of Los Angeles, through its City Plants program, is offering property owners, businesses, schools, and apartment homeowners associations free and delivered shade trees for planting in yards, on private property and those strips between the sidewalk and the street. It is committed to planting 90,000 trees by 2028 to increase shade and moderate rising temperatures. 

And then there is the problem of buildings with heat-absorbing black or dark shingles—a desirable attribute in cold climates, but a major contributor to city warming in sunny California.

As of 2013, Los Angeles has required all new and refurbished roofs to be “cool,” meaning that they reflect more sunlight and absorb heat. A “Cool Roof” uses new products that efficiently do this, lowering temperatures on hot, sunny days to keep home interiors cooler and reducing energy consumption from air conditioners. According to the Global Cool Cities Alliance, a Cool Roof doesn’t necessarily have to be white, although this color is ideal. It can also be shades of gray or red.