How Charlotte is tackling street heat

CHARLOTTE — If you’ve ever been outside on a hot sunny day, it should come as no surprise that places like parking lots feel warmer than Charlotte’s shady parks.

It’s not just your imagination; the city of Charlotte’s office of sustainability has been studying this phenomenon through a partnership with the Smart Surfaces Coalition.

Dr. Robyn Byers, the office’s assistant director, explained that it comes down to how heat is either absorbed or reflected by the ground, and how we build our cities can make a big difference.

For how big of a difference, the city has a map of average surface temperatures in different neighborhoods on its SEAP+ Dashboard.

“You may see a number that goes up to 110, 120 and that seems a little scary,” Byers said. “That’s not air temperature. It’s important to say that, but that helps us figure out those systemic hot spots in the area.”

The cause is something called the heat island effect. Darker surfaces, hard surfaces like concrete and places without shade or vegetation are more likely to trap heat. That means high temperatures get absorbed, making the area feel hotter for longer.

Byers said the city can help.

They’re using the surface heat data they collected to help decide where to plant new street trees, they’re rethinking how to paint city buildings and what to use for roofing so they’re lighter.

The city has also added a new titanium dioxide treatment to city roads so they absorb less heat.

“We’ve included that in our current contract for street maintenance, and so we have a little over 11 miles that are currently treated,” she said.

All in all, these differences can amount to about 5 to 10 degrees, which Byers said can make a big difference when it comes to how much energy you need to cool your home or just how comfortable it is to be outside.

In surveys and focus groups with people throughout the city, Byers said extreme heat consistently came up as the top climate concern. She said this effort to mitigate the impact of the urban heat island effect comes straight from those discussions.

This summer, she said the city is partnering with county public health and emergency management to work with Duke University to study how their current heat mitigation strategies are working, where the gaps are and how they can improve the ways they work together.

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