Rising heat in subway stations could derail transit systems: study
Here’s something coming without delays.
New research warns that rapidly rising underground heat in subway stations is well on its way to becoming a “silent hazard” that will wreck transit systems and cause health issues for straphangers in the not-so-distant future.
“Subsurface temperature rises can also cause transportation infrastructure and public health issues, such as overheated subway rails that force trains to slow down or stop to avoid incidents with significant economic costs associated with the delay of public transportation services,” warns Northwestern engineering professor Alessandro Rotta Loria in a study released Tuesday.
“It’s a phenomenon that can be problematic for the condition of the operational performance of infrastructure,” Loria told The Post, adding that in addition to impacts on transit efficiency, buildings above stations are also at risk of cracks and related aesthetical deterioration.
Making matters worse, the hellishly hot platform and tunnel areas — scientifically referred to as urban heat islands — are not equipped for the major temperature change, one which can have a whopping ground temperature of 70 degrees.
“No existing civil structure or infrastructure in cities has been designed to account for rising ground temperatures and is hence prone to operational issues due to subsurface heat islands,” the study, published in the journal Nature Communications Engineering, noted.
Blame the trains themselves for this phenomenon as “underground transport repeatedly impacts the temperature field of the subsurface” from its heat emissions along with the same coming from crowds of passengers.
The Big Apple, of all places, is feeling the impacts of it worse than most.
“Because of the 4 to 5 million daily riders of the subway system, the overall population impact [from heat] can be high,” Masoud Ghandehari, professor of Urban Systems Engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, told The Post.
“When you combine their production, to the excessive heat…that combined effect can be quite hazardous.”
Ghandehari — who has studied pollution on the city’s subways — also said that there has been a “short-term intervention” of putting fans down in NYC subway stations as an attempt to compensate for the lack of breeze – a major factor as to why platforms feel so burning hot.
As for fixing the problem as a whole, that won’t be coming to stations anytime soon.
“I think we are not going to end up ventilating our subway system; I don’t think it’s just physically, financially viable.”
Also, just as the weight of Manhattan’s skyscrapers is causing the city to sink, big buildings also “continuously inject heat into the ground,” according to the new study.
Loria conducted research on the Loop area within Chicago’s subway system. It is “the most densely populated district in the US after Manhattan,” he wrote.
“The impacts of temperature variations associated with subsurface heat islands are shown to represent a silent hazard for the operational performance of civil infrastructure in Chicago and potentially other cities worldwide,” Loria added.
However, there could be a silver lining associated with the fiery underground temperatures.
“We can basically come up with heat maps that tell us where it’s hot underground. Based on these maps, we then can take options. We can also deploy different technologies underneath or next to buildings to basically absorb the heat,” said Loria, who looks to study NYC next.
“We’re also, in general, dealing with a bigger opportunity for cities.”
