The Maricopa Association of Governments' Active Transportation Committee will hear a presentation on heat-resilient infrastructure at its June 16 meeting, as the regional planning body considers how extreme heat affects bike lanes, sidewalks, and shared-use paths across Maricopa County.
The presentation comes from the Smart Surfaces Coalition, a national nonprofit that advocates for reflective pavements, cool roofs, tree canopy, and other surface-level strategies to reduce urban temperatures. The coalition has produced a guidebook for local governments, developed with Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, and has studied how reflective surfaces affect outdoor worker productivity — findings with direct implications for people who walk, bike, or wait for transit in extreme heat. For active transportation, the most relevant tools are reflective pavements, which use light-colored sealants to lower surface temperatures, and tree canopy, which shades pedestrians and cyclists.
What MAG might do with this
The Active Transportation Committee is responsible for recommending projects for regional funding, including through MAG's Design Assistance Program. The committee evaluates projects based on connectivity, safety, and regional need — criteria that currently do not explicitly include heat resilience.
Cities across Maricopa County are already working on heat-related transportation improvements. Phoenix has been piloting cool pavement coatings on streets. Tempe's Transportation Master Plan includes tree canopy targets along arterial roads. Several cities have begun installing shade structures at bus stops, though coverage remains uneven.
A briefing on smart surfaces does not guarantee the committee will change its project scoring criteria, but it opens the door to discussing whether heat resilience should factor into how the region funds active transportation projects.
Context
Maricopa County has seen hundreds of heat-associated deaths in recent years, and extreme heat is a growing concern for bike and pedestrian planning. Unshaded bike lanes and paved paths can reach surface temperatures that make them dangerous during large portions of the day — a problem that affects not just comfort but whether residents can safely walk or bike to transit, school, or work.
The committee is composed of representatives from MAG member agencies, Valley Metro, the Coalition of Arizona Bicyclists, and the landscape architecture and public health community. Meeting materials, including any briefing documents, are published on MAG's event page.