“Construct a new 2-lane undivided road — about $2 million to $3 million per mile in rural areas, about $3 million to $5 million in urban areas. Construct a new 4-lane highway — $4 million to $6 million per mile in rural and suburban areas, $8 million to $10 million per mile in urban areas.”

$40k isn’t cheap but it’s a fraction of the cost of the roads. I can see the value of experimentation.

Just imagine if it reduced crime. A charge that puts someone in jail for a year costs society well over $40k. Heat definitely can lead to anger, riots etc.

I wonder why countries like Taiwan and Korea are so good at building things like roads, metro railways, etc, while around Boston a lot of it is basically atrocious crap that comes at multiples, to orders of magnitude, the cost.

Edit: also in Hokkaido, I never saw a single road as bad as around Boston.

Taiwanese and Korean voters (and voters in a lot of other parts of Asia and Europe) believe that providing high-quality infrastructure and public transit is a basic duty of government. If the transit situation got bad there, the politicians would be worried about losing the next election, so they don't let things get bad.

American voters just have lower standards. This is true in a lot of other areas, especially education. If American politicians believed they would lose re-election because of bad infrastructure, the money and commitment necessary to fix the problem would suddenly, magically appear.

Are they dealing with the same climate issues? The extreme hot/cold cycles really tear up Boston’s roads.

Korea definitely experiences temperature swings. For example, the average highs for Seoul[0] are very similar to the average highs of Boston[1].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul#Climate

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston#Climate

Parts of Japan's climate are in many ways like New England's climate, though Japan has more subtropical regions obviously, and also more mountains.

Both get plenty of snow and get humid in summers.

Korea has even more extreme hot/cold cycles. Even Taiwan, in the mountains, gets cold/snowy in the Winter, and what I saw there was that there were zero roads as bad as in, and around, Boston.

Also, in Hokkaido I never saw such bad roads, either.

I don't get it. Why is "climate chsnge" needed as a justification? Isn't it enough of a reason that it can cool temparatures in the surrounding area 10 degrees if it helps reduce AC costs?

In this case, it's possibly the spin of fox, or at least their intentional inclusion, to act as a dog whistle to conservatives about liberals (mentioned as possibly running for president) wasting money to fight some imaginary thing, at least how their viewers will see it.

The closing of the article is quite telling:

> "Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who may make a run for president in 2020, has used the project as part of an overall plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city by 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2025.

> "Climate change is a fact of life that people in Los Angeles and cities around the world live with every day. It is a grave threat to our health, our environment, and our economy — and it is not debatable or negotiable," he said in a statement last year after President Trump said he would walk away from the Paris Climate Agreement."

Politics

Anybody here have knowledge into why it wouldn't be possible to just formulate the pavement itself to be lightly colored? I'm wondering out loud here why you couldn't mix something into it that would alter the color and be a more permanent solution than a top coat.

I'm no expert but asphalt is bitumen for a reason, and bitumen is blacker than black.

If you were to mix in something in sufficient proportion to lighten the color of the asphalt, it seems likely you'd change more properties than just its appearance, like its durability and water resistance.

Concrete topped roads are lighter than asphalt. But yeah, no reason they cannot have some coating mixed in with the paving material to make it lighter.

Whenever I'm in Vegas, I do wonder why they don't use lighter paving material --you see the warped asphalt from the Summer heat.

You probably could. But there are a lot of roads that already exist.

This strikes me as incredibly dumb from a safety standpoint, especially when it comes to motorcyclists.

When painted parts of the road become wet they're slick as ice.

Motorcyclists quickly learn to avoid a variety of operations on painted sections of the road, especially in the wet, because the grip is severely compromised.

I bet this is not to combat climate change rather than to combat hot spots in the city...

If they manage to reduce the temperature by doing this, then it would help climate change by reducing energy usage during summer.

I remember a story where Phoenix painted a parking lot turquoise to try and do the same thing.

If you look past the cost, it's not a bad idea. Parts of LA are asphalt jungles, and this might be one way to relatively easily reduce the temperature.

> If you look past the cost, it's not a bad idea.

Depends how you feel about snow blindness.

Hopefully this stuff isn't as bad as snow and is more matte white versus shiny/reflective white.

The photos I found look like its more matte than new snow reflecting light into your eyes like a jj abrams movie.

Better photos here: https://www.demilked.com/white-streets-heat-climate-change-l...

$5700/mile-year, based on the maintenance period of 7 years.

How is this not a driving hazard? I’m all for fighting climate change but won’t this make driving during a sunset basically impossible and dangerous? I can only imagine how horrible the glare will be.

Far more balanced and informative write up of this story:

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/blogs/how-...

There was nothing but statement of fact in the original link, taking everything that everyone for saying at face value. Do we just assume that anything from Fox News is biased here on HackerNews due to its source?

I think if you look, the bias is clear there. The ending is a clear conservative dog whistle as far as I'm concerned. I see no reason that the mention of a possible presidential bid and a statement against Trump is relevant to this otherwise.

Yet the piece parent links is far more detailed and informative than Fox's short summary. It would be the better HN link.

It's unfortunate they wrote balanced as I don't think it's about balance or bias. Just amount of information content.

The MNN story is totally mute on the cost, which is relevant.

I don't think the concept is a bad idea, but I would like to see a representative trial first before assuming it is a consequence-free benefit.

That's how sound walls along freeways came along. Nobody considered that the materials were not at all sound-absorbent and therefore would just displace noise a bit farther away from the freeway.

They both mention the cost and life.

Fully agree that some representative trials would be sensible first. Far too much of what we do turns out to have unintended consequences.

Maybe they should explore possible glare from a white, coated, road surface. It'll be a poor scheme if it turns out to lead to an increase in auto accidents or pedestrians being run over because they're getting lost in heat haze.

LA is mismanaged today at epic levels.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a gigantic waste of taxpayer money? Those funds surely could be used more effectively to combat climate change. This can't be the best solution they came up with.

Depends on how well it works. If it actually brings down the temperature a noticeable amount in the summer, it might be offset by the saved air conditioning costs. LA gets some fun blackouts every summer from everyone using their AC at the same time. As a resident, I don't have any problem with the experiment.

I used to live in southern California, and LA is just hot. Always has been, always will be. $40,000 per mile to paint roads white is a waste of taxpayer money that could otherwise be used for more fruitful causes and initiatives (food for the poor, infrastructure, healthcare, housing).

How long it has been hot seems irrelevant to the question of "will this make it less hot?". _IF_ this makes it less hot, it still _might_ be a waste of money, but it all depends on how much less hot.

Let’s say a home every 80 feet. That’s 132 homes per mile. Over 7 years that’s $40 per year. I wonder if it makes the neighborhood 10 cents per house per day nicer. I haven’t lived in the LA heat.

Probably cheaper than reworking the urban design to incorporate shade trees.

No water.