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The Air Down There: Subway Cooling Gets Rated
By
Jen Carlson
Published Aug 4, 2008
Modified Aug 4, 2008
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Aug 4, 2008
Modified Aug 4, 2008
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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?
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%
Tagged
air conditioning
heat
MTA
subway
summer
Survey
transit
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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