The “cool street” was once a highly praised measure against heat in the city. One one street, a citizens’ initiative is keeping the idea alive. From relevant.
Walking down Hasnerstrasse in Vienna’s Ottakring neighborhood on a hot day is like walking through a small summer oasis, both literally and figuratively. Under the trees, benches, and, starting this year, the “Hasnerlounge” invite you to linger, while a drinking fountain also provides cooling refreshment.
During the summer vacation, when it is most needed, this summer oasis is available to residents as a cool outdoor living room. When the project lost momentum three years ago, a group led by Ottakring resident Johann Schneider fought to keep it going.For context, we first have to go back to 2019.
It was already clear to many at the time, including the then-deputy mayor of Vienna Birgit Hebein, that heat was a major problem, especially in urban areas. In 2018, there were more heat-related deaths in Austria than deaths from traffic accidents. As man-made climate change progresses, it is also clear that heat waves will become even more frequent and extreme in the future. In an attempt to counteract this, the city of Vienna trailblazed a new concept: cool streets.
Three streets in the Ottakring, Landstrasse, and Favoriten districts were temporarily redesigned and traffic limited for a four-week pilot phase in summer 2019. Cars and parking spaces were swapped for turf with benches and showers. The aim was to provide residents with a cool outdoor space on hot days.
The cool street locations were selected based on the Vienna heat map. The map shows not only places in the city where cooling is urgently needed, but also shows the population structure, visualizing where many children and older people – who are particularly vulnerable – live. Hasnerstrasse was one of them.
5 Degrees Cooler
For Green Party member Hebein, the pilot phase was a success. While serving as deputy mayor, she said the cool streets dramatically lowered the ambient temperature. Based on a simulation carried out by experts from Green for Cities, the difference was greatest on Hasnerstrasse: the street was up to 5.4 degrees Celsius cooler. The biggest cooling effect came from the mist machines. A 3.3 degree decline was estimated in air temperature on Hartmuthgasse in the 10th district, and a 1.3 degree decline was calculated for Kleistgasse in the Landstrasse district.
The city of Vienna also surveyed the opinions of 518 local residents. The poll found that 87 percent of respondents thought the streets were leiwand, meaning great, while 92 percent were unbothered by the reduction in street parking spaces, Hebein stated.
Cool Streets Expand
The project continued the following year. Instead of three, cool streets were introduced in 18 of Vienna’s 23 districts. And instead of four weeks, the cool streets remained for the entire summer holiday. Two supervisors were also provided for each street, who were available to answer residents’ questions and suggestions and to enable more participation.
Four additional permanent designated cool street sections were installed on Phorusgasse, Goldschlagstrasse, Pelzgasse, and Franklinstrasse in the fall of 2020. Measures like fountain showers or water features for short-term cooling and structural interventions such as unsealing surfaces and providing space for additional green areas with newly-planted trees were also carried out to make permanent changes. These four streets are still being maintained by Vienna today as Cool Streets Plus.
Experts took care to choose street locations in densely built-up areas where cooling measures would have the greatest possible effect, explained Erwin Forster of the city’s road maintenance department.
An End and a New Beginning
The Cool Streets ended in the summer of 2021. Hebein’s prestige project did not survive a change of government in Vienna. City Councilor for transport Ulli Sima, who took over for Hebein after the 2020 election, reported that the cool streets had not been as well received as hoped. The project cost the city around 1.3 million euros in 2020, according to the Court of Audit.
Photo by O. N. E. 16, courtesy of relevant.
In the project’s second year, there were complaints about the water quality of the drinking fountains and spray showers, leading to six of the 18 streets losing their “cool” designation. No further reasons were given for this decision. Today, when asked, the city road department states that the focus is on permanent measures, such as greening and unsealing surfaces, rather than temporary measures.
On Hasnerstrasse, it was precisely these temporary measures that people missed.
“Many people thought it was great that something like this existed, and they had already gotten used to it,” Schneider says. After learning that the project had been discontinued, he began to mobilize in the district and ask for signatures on a petition for its preservation. A citizens’ initiative was soon formed. “People got behind it really quickly,” Schneider recalls.
In just a short time, Schneider was able to collect 500 signatures, the required number needed for a petition at the district or municipal level. “The district council said they would support us. They didn’t have a budget for the project, but they helped us a lot with the organization,” Schneider says.
Cool Streets Become Summer Oases
The Ottakring district council took care of the submission to the municipal traffic department and was able to place concrete blocks to mark out the cycle lane, seating areas, and a drinking fountain. This meant the cool street on Hasnerstrasse could continue. But budget restrictions meant the same level of support as before could not be kept up.
The citizens’ initiative gave rise to the 10-person O.N.E. 16 association. Members work on a voluntary basis to make sure that the Graetzloase (“neighborhood oasis”) runs smoothly, doing anything from obtaining permits to posting traffic signs. O.N.E. 16 has received funding from the local Agenda 21, a city- and district-financed association that promotes citizen participation processes, for two years as part of the “Young Neighborhood” program. This support is used to finance planting, traffic signs, and other expenses.
Invitation to the Cool Street
Since last year, Hasnerstrasse has also received funding from the district’s cultural budget. “We use this for events and to pay artists,” Schneider explains.
“We are open to everyone in the district. You can always come to us,” Schneider emphasizes. The association aims to reach everyone in the neighborhood. “Unfortunately, we’re still not as diverse as the district itself,” he admits. The measures to combat heat are also limited, “but you can’t rebuild the whole city,” he says.
When it is unbearably hot in summer, even something supposedly simple, like a small summer oasis, makes a big difference for residents.
Climatologist Simon Tschannett explained the difference between temperature and perceived heat: “The air temperature can be relatively homogeneous across the city, but the perceived temperature is very different. This can even vary from one side of the street to the other, because there is shade on one side of the street.”
This is precisely where measures like cool streets and resulting initiatives, such as those on Hasnerstrasse, can be important. All of this can help raise awareness, but “such measures are particularly useful when they are integrated into an overall concept,” Tschannett summarized.
Vienna is currently trying to implement a comprehensive Heat Action Plan. In addition to measures intended to have a long term cooling effect on the city, such as the expansion of shady green spaces, the plan formulates solutions such as the 13 “cool boats” to provide help in acute heat. However, the idea of reducing traffic on entire streets has largely been abandoned.
“Parking spaces are always a big issue, of course,” admits Schneider. But all in all, things are now working well on Hasnerstrasse. What he would like to see for a small citizens’ initiative like the one on this street is above all a budget and more coordination on the part of the city. Setting up funding and fighting through the jungle of bureaucracy is the most difficult thing for initiatives like Hasnerstrasse. “Even if everything has now settled down at halfway, something like that would make a lot of things easier,” he says.
…
Naz Küçüktekin is a freelance journalist in Vienna. This article originally appeared in relevant, an Austrian outlet for solutions journalism. Republished by permission.
