Las Vegas city officials are always looking for unique ways to keep us cool during the summer. Right now, they have their eye on Los Angeles as they try out a unique approach to lowering temperatures.
The city of LA is testing a white seal on some of their residential streets, in an effort to lower the temperatures. According to the Bureau of Street Services in LA, found it could bring the heat down on those streets by about 10 degrees, potentially saving people money on electricity.
However, city officials in Las Vegas say painting streets white may not work in our city. The city already uses a unique pavement mix that's really oily to combat the dry climate.
"It's really difficult for us to keep our pavement markings white already," says city traffic engineer, Gena Kendall. "If we had entire lanes that were white it might be quite a challenge."
A representative with the Nevada Department of Transportation tells 13 Action News they considered something similar, but ultimately decided against it because of cost and maintenance.
NDOT is primarily responsible for freeways, highways, and interstates with high speeds, constant traffic and heavy truck travel. A representative with NDOT says that combination would make it impractical to paint streets white since they would have to constantly close roads in order to clean and repaint.
The city of Las Vegas says they are currently working on several projects to reduce the heat in downtown in time for summer.
Right now, they're working to add more trees to line the streets. This will provide more shade for people walking in downtown.
The city is also testing out shade structures and could decide to find additional funding for more of them at the end of the summer.
Have you guys noticed these shade structures in downtown? As it gets hotter, what do you think of them? pic.twitter.com/Q9N7IXe5UN
— Marissa Kynaston (@marissaktnv) April 24, 2018
Even though the city is working on alternative ways to reduce heat, they're not ruling out painting the streets white or doing something similar. Officials say they'll look forward to the results from LA's paint test.
"I commend LA for trying it out," Kendall says. "We're going to keep a close eye on it and see how it works."
