Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Oct. 22 launched Cool Streets LA, a new program to address the effects of climate change at the neighborhood level.

“Rising temperatures put our local communities on the front lines of the climate crisis,” Garcetti said. “Cool Streets LA is about taking action in ways that will make a real and direct impact on people’s daily lives.”

Cool Streets LA will advance the goals included in Garcetti’s Green New Deal by piloting six cool neighborhood projects in vulnerable communities by 2021, and 10 by 2025. The initiative will also help achieve two more key goals in L.A.’s Green New Deal: planting 90,000 trees by 2021 and increasing tree canopy in areas of greatest need by at least 50% by 2028.

The effort by the city’s Bureau of Street Services combines multiple strategies to lower temperatures and add shade in L.A.’s hottest and most vulnerable neighborhoods. The program will include tree planting and the installation of cool pavement, new bus benches with shade-structures, expanded cool roofs and hydration stations. It will also empower local businesses with energy efficiency rebate services through the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

A project was unveiled on Oct. 22 in South L.A. and will be the first of 10 to be completed by 2025. It includes 14 new street trees planted along a two-block stretch, the installation of 35,000 square feet of cool pavement and four new bus benches with shade canopies.

“StreetsLA is committed to enhancing the quality of life for all,” said Street Services Bureau Director Adel Hagekhalil. “By implementing holistic, innovative and coordinated solutions such as applying cool pavement, planting trees, installing transit shelters and adding hydration stations, we are cooling our communities and making our streets safe, mobile and resilient.”

Cool Streets LA includes a renewed focus on transit corridors citywide in neighborhoods where residents are dependent on public transportation. By December 2020, StreetsLA plans to install 750 new bus benches with shade umbrellas adjacent to new or existing street trees.

Garcetti also announced a design workshop led by StreetsLA and the mayor’s Chief Design Officer Christopher Hawthorne to develop options for shade structures that can be added to bus benches and easily scaled up in production.

“In an era of climate change, shade has become an equity issue and can even be thought of as a kind of infrastructure,” Hawthorne said. “We’ve always had beautifully shaded streets and sidewalks in parts of Los Angeles. Our goal is to deliver shade more equitably around the city, to make the experience of walking or waiting for the bus or train more comfortable. In the coming weeks, the mayor’s office will be supporting this effort by organizing a design workshop to find solutions to provide shade that are both attractive and cost-effective.”

The cooling impacts in Cool Streets LA will enable the city to meet additional goals in the mayor’s Green New Deal, including reducing urban and rural temperature differential by at least 1.7 degrees by 2025 and 3 degrees by 2035, ensuring every high-volume transit stop has access to cooling features by 2021 and installing cool pavement material on 250 miles of city streets.