Buffalo Bayou Park sits in a channel below the street grid, and the physics work in your favor: cool air drains downhill and pools along the water, the bald cypress hold a continuous ribbon of canopy, and the bridges overhead throw hard shadow bands every few hundred meters. On an August afternoon the bayou path reads 6 to 8 degrees cooler than Allen Parkway directly above it.
These three keep you below grade the whole way. We route around the skate park bowl at midday — full sun — and bring you up to street level only at shaded stair exits.