The City of Dallas is developing new cooling materials for city streets as residents complain about their local government doing a poor job of fulfilling more basic road maintenance responsibilities.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a recent survey from the City of Dallas revealed that residents are largely dissatisfied with the state of Dallas’ streets, particularly their cleanliness.
Meanwhile, the City has announced it is joining a partnership with the Smart Surfaces Coalition to develop an alternative to asphalt for street surfaces that would retain less heat in an effort to cool down the city during hot summer months. The alternative material will likely be reflective or light-colored.
“An investment in Smart Surfaces is a win for Dallas Residents,” said Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson in a press release sent to The Dallas Express. “Leveraging this intelligent and cost-effective technology will cool our neighborhoods during hot Texas summers, reduce residents’ energy expenses, and minimize the impact of flash flooding events.”
Dallas is also pursuing the use of porous pavements and cool roofs to reduce heat retention across the city. Other cities throughout the United States that work with the Smart Surfaces Coalition include Atlanta, New Orleans, Boston, Baltimore, and Columbia, South Carolina.
The Dallas Express reached out to the City for more information but received no response by press time.
As City leadership elects to spend taxpayer money on inventing a new way to pave Dallas’ roads, it is unclear if local leaders intend to address more fundamental road-related complaints from their constituents.
Polling suggests that Dallas residents feel that the City government has failed to keep the streets clean, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Just a quarter of residents approve of the City’s approach to street cleaning, while 44% describe it as poor, according to a recent City satisfaction survey.
Dallasites participating in the survey asserted that “Downtown is filthy” and implored the government to “Clean up the city!”
One respondent complained about “infrastructure issues” including “badly timed traffic lights, broken curbs, potholes and rough street surfaces, [and] dirty streets due to no street sweeping.”
These sentiments align with the larger trend of declining approval of the City of Dallas, as indicated by the survey.
Furthermore, a recent analysis ranked Dallas among the top 10 dirtiest cities in the United States, as reported by The Dallas Express.
