Tag: heat index

NYCT Reports Most Subway Cars Well Air Conditioned

subwayblogger8 Comments

According to the MTA, most subway cars are well air conditioned.

Well, ok then.  Thanks for letting me know…I guess?

A hot mess. (sardinetea via flickr)
A hot mess. (sardinetea via flickr)

Wait, wait.  Did they just guess at that?  Of course not.  They commissioned a full scale study.  Transit officials inspected 2,666 train cars throughout the system.  Of them, 73 cars failed.

It appears that the pass/fail mark was 78 degrees.  Personally, I think that is a little toasty, but manageable.  That’s certainly better than some trains over 88 degrees!

The E train had the worst score, which is not a surprise at all because they are the oldest trains.

So I’m left wondering why a study was needed.  I mean, sure it probably gives you an official looking number when you’re done, but it doesn’t really fix anything.

The MTA should be studying what would improve the a) reporting and b) repairing of overheating cars.

I guess you can just see which cars have no AC because they are usually empty!  However, I doubt if riders report overheated train cars.  Air conditioning, along with other general repair needs should be easily reportable, but they aren’t.  I mean you could call 411 I guess, but who has time for that?

Is it the beginning of the end?

subwayblogger1 Comment

I’m about one or two more back to back track fires away from taking cover in a bunker somewhere.  Seriously.  Things over the past couple weeks are just getting crazy.

It all started with summer showing up light a white hot freight train.  For weeks, we enjoyed beautiful mid 70’s each day.  Then, overnight it was 96 degrees outside…or 104 if you follow that “Real Feel” bullshit.

**Side note.  What the hell is a “Real Feel” temperature or heat index?  I know what it really means, but lets just make it easy.  Just tell me how damn hot it feels outside and leave it at that.  If it’s 86 outside but feels like 94, I want to know about the 94.  Screw the 86…who cares.  My ass is sweating.

Anyway, the heat showed up, and I started to brace for the subway heat as we’ve discussed at length in the past.  Interestingly, it was virtually the same day it hit as last year.  Also, we’ve discussed that it takes about a day or two for the heat to make it’s way underground.  Then it’s an oven.

So yeah, of course I was expecting the heat eventually, but not all this other crap.

Let’s start with the track fires.  It’s so damn hot that shit just randomly catches on fire on the PATH train tracks almost every week.  Switches, lights, and boxes in the subway blow up or short out.  How hot is it?  Hot enough to bring mass transit to it’s knees.

If there’s ever been an argument for better maintenance of the subway system (including upgrades), this is it.   Gas is hitting $5.00 a gallon all around us, more and more people are taking the trains, and we’re running a system from 1932.  Just wait and see how f-ed up it gets when the rain comes…

Then, there was last night.  I’m sitting in my apartment, and it’s perfectly quiet outside.  All of a sudden it sounds like rocks are being thrown at my windows.  I look outside, and it looks like a tornado is coming up the block.  I watches as a whole tree across the street became uprooted.

Then on the other side of the street, scaffolding started ripping off my neighbor’s building.  You know the scaffolding they put over the sidewalks?  Most usually have blue plywood walls put up around the first story of the scaffold.  Well, this wind started peeling off the 4×8 sheets of plywood like post-it notes.  They flew up the street doing cartwheels over the cars on the block. Read More »