Overview:

Summary: Protect public transit riders at stations to minimize exposure to extreme heat through shading, greenery, and/or water features.

Implementation: Plan, design, and construct cooling interventions to existing and new transit stations.

Considerations for Use: Cooling interventions at transit stations can be piloted on high priority corridors, at highly-frequented stations, or in the most heat vulnerable neighborhoods.

• Policy Levers: The mechanism municipalities can use to actualize the intervention. These policy levers will likely be used in combination with each other.
  
  
  Funding and FinancingThe allocation of public or philanthropic funding or private financing to implement projects, including risk transfer mechanisms.
• Trigger Points: Opportunities for municipalities to implement risk reduction and preparedness interventions based on the policy lever, building on the United Nations Environment Programme triggers used in the Beating the Heat handbook (2021).
  
  
  Evaluating or initiating major city infrastructure projectsIncludes projects such as city transit, street or utilities construction / re-construction etc.
• Intervention Type:
  Buildings and Built Form
• Sectors:
  Informal Settlements, Transportation

Impact:

• Target Beneficiaries:
  Heat-vulnerable communities, Residents
• Phase of Impact:
  Emergency response and management, Risk reduction and mitigation
• Metrics:
  Number of heat-related hospitalizations

Case Studies:

• Western Sydney, Australia (UNEP, Pg 178)

Implementation:

• Intervention Scale:
  Site
• Authority and Governance:
  City government
• Implementation Timeline:
  Short-term (1-2 Years)
• Implementation Stakeholders:
  City government
• Funding Sources:
  Public investment
• Capacity to Act:
  High, Medium

Benefits:

• Cost-Benefit:
  Low
• Public Good:
  High
• GHG Reduction:
  N/A
• Co-benefits (Climate/Environmental):
  N/A
• Co-benefits (Social):
  Improve human health, Improve the public realm