The Air Down There: Subway Cooling Gets Rated

LoveItMadly's Flickr.

How has the summer been treating straphangers underground? Allegedly, the subway system's air conditioning is cooling everyone off...everyone except those taking the E train.

The Daily News reports that "subway riders on the E line have the highest chance of getting stuck on a sweltering subway car because of faulty air conditioning." But their score, the lowest of them all, was still pretty good on paper--coming in at 83.3%, meaning that 16.7% of the time the E train cars are 78 degrees or warmer. During testing by NYC Transit officials, some encountered cars that reached 88 degrees or higher! Probably, still better than the nostalgia train, cooled by ceiling fans.

All in all a total of 2,666 trains were checked over the course of June and July, with only 73 failing, and the average passing rate being a high 97.3%. NYC Transit President Howard Roberts has made the cooling of the cars a priority, and as such "the number of cars without air conditioning was cut virtually in half from 5.2% last summer to 2.7% this year." As an incentive to the workers, maintenance superintendents with the most cool cars get trophies, while those with the worst track record get oversized thermometers to be prominently displayed at their desks...perhaps unfair to those assigned to the E train, which has the oldest cars underground. Now, how about getting those platforms cooled off and working on a greener system?

How often do you encounter un-air-conditioned subway cars? ( surveys)

And after the jump, the passing rates for all the lines.

NYC Transit Authority's survey of subway line air-conditioning, via the Daily News:

Line.... % passed
1...............94.4%
2.............100.0%
3...............95.8%
7.............100.0%
GS...........100.0%
4...............98.6%
5...............99.3%
6.............100.0%
B.............100.0%
D..............95.8%
N.............100.0%
Q..............97.9%
W.............98.4%
FS...........100.0%
A..............98.4%
C..............97.5%
J/Z...........98.3%
L.............100.0%
M............100.0%
E..............83.3%
F..............94.4%
G..............98.8%
R..............90.6%
V..............95.1%

Total cars checked.......2,666

Passed............................2,593

Failed...................................73

Average pass rate.......97.3%

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By Jen Carlson in News on August 4, 2008 2:47 PM

Comments [rss]

cucarachita

A dream, naturally, but airconditioned (or at least, well-ventilated) subway platforms would be great.

Someone should do a study of the most sweltering subway platforms. I nominate the 59th street uptown 1 platform.

Jerky

I swear that the temperature on the 6 train when its not packed is somewhere around 68°.....

slappy

How many million riders per day? How much cash flow revenue? Investment potential? The MTA is the biggest mismanagement (corruption, thievery?) story in NYC. Where is that money going? It there a site that explains it? Are there any commenters who really believe the MTA needs more money?

kswissreject

Yeah, while A/C may be wasteful, it seems easy enough to install some fans. Perhaps there's a liability reason for stations with lower ceilings? I'm with the poster on W4th, it's always ridiculous in the summer.

Jen Chung

I would love some ventilation on the platforms, but how about the aboveground stations? At some of the renovated ones, there is shockingly no ventilation, so when you emerge from the steamy platform, it's steamy station, too.

And I took an un-AC'd 1 downtown this morning--when I stepped off, I told people not to get on this car.

diablofreak

they got new cars for the M and J line but not on the queens blvd line. what gives?

especially the E. it goes to WTC of all places! get those rolling stock replaced to the newest train cars already! (like the 1,2,3,4,5,6,L,N,M,J did already!)

Steven

It seems like every year the problems with the ACs on the E only go worse.

killerasp

i take the E to work. i encounter at least one hot train car a day. AC sucks on the E.

JMH

So wouldn't you just, you know, move to another car at the next station? I'm not excusing the MTA for broken cars, of course, but in the scheme of problems with the subway, this isn't anywhere near as bad as trains breaking down, for example.

Gothamist_Cynic

I was surprised the G line has A/C at its stations.

RevWaldo

Putting A/C in the underground platforms might be pushing it but putting some Big Ass Fans™ up here and there would go a long way. Didn't the platforms used to have fans back in the day?

zodak

there's always some fool who thinks opening the windows will make it cooler.

henricus

Just some ventilation on the platforms would be nice. If any of you have had to wait at W4th Street stop during the summer you would know the meaning of hot. I feel like they are actually heating that place.

rdc

I ride the A train every day and it seems like almost once a week I get on to a car that is sweltering in the evenings.

JenChungsBaby

Haven't I seen that picture on Gothamist before?

Outter Burrougher

wouldn't air conditioning the subway platforms, where cool air would escape through the tunnels, require a huge energy output and thus make the system less green? that last sentence just seems to want things that, at present time, would not go together.

Toby von Meistersinger

Back when they were running Redbirds on the 7 train, there was always one car that wasn't air conditioned. This was because the 7 was running 11 car trains - the R36 cars (which were paired up) had AC while the R33 cars (which were singles) did not.

The Redbirds had some really good AC when it worked!

Pharmer

I thought that guy in the picture was a woman...

Ugh. I got on the E train last week and the car felt clammy. Gross.

w0wzers

Hmm Well the E train of course. Always has at least one car that is shit hot, also there maybe someone who smells like shit in that car. And has anyone else noticed the shit smell on Nassau Ave. on the G. When a train is coming queens-bound it brings hell with it. It has to be a health hazard shit is flowing in some tunnel on the G. Though this morning wasn't as bad but you still can smell it. Horrid. and for good measure shit.