"For anyone who's ever staggered onto the 1 train looking like they've just completed a Bikram yoga class, relief may finally be on the horizon. The MTA is exploring geothermal cooling-a technology more commonly used to heat and chill buildings-as a way to keep New York's notoriously sticky subway platforms tolerable in the summer. In a request for information issued last week and , the agency asked experts to pitch ideas for tapping into the earth's subsurface to move and store heat."
"The concept is deceptively simple: Take all that stagnant, suffocating platform air and push it down into the ground, where temperatures remain relatively stable. If it works, stations could hover around 82-85 degrees on even the hottest days. The first guinea pigs? Upper Manhattan's 168th and 181st Street stations on the 1 line-both deep, cavernous spaces infamous for feeling like saunas."
The MTA is piloting geothermal cooling at two of the system's hottest stations to reduce oppressive summer platform heat. The plan would push warm, stagnant platform air into the earth where subsurface temperatures are stable, potentially keeping stations near 82–85 degrees on hot days. Initial test sites are 168th and 181st Street on the 1 line, both roughly 120 feet deep and prone to trapped heat from braking trains, electronics, fans, and waste heat from subway car A/C units. Existing mechanical air-tempering systems exist at a few stations, but geothermal could offer a cheaper, more energy-efficient, and more replicable solution across the network.
Read at Time Out New York
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