Gothamist: Nothing is worse on a hot summer day than waiting for the train on an even hotter subway platform. Now, the city is looking to do something about it.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA, announced a plan Monday morning to explore technology that will use thermal energy to suck heat out of subway stations and store it in nearby buildings during the winter season.
The system is called a “Thermal Energy Network” and the city will study the technology in the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall and Chambers Street station complex — with the goal of capturing heat to warm nearby municipal buildings come wintertime.
The “feasibility study” will cost $800,000 and if successful, design work on the technology will begin in 2027.
“There are few feelings worse than escaping the extreme summer heat only to find yourself on a subway platform that is even hotter. Unfortunately, for millions of commuters that is the reality of our transit system — with some stations soaring up to 20 degrees hotter than the outside temperatures,” Mamdani said in a statement.
New York City’s subway system can often feel like a sauna during the summer, since incoming train cars spit out hot air from their AC units onto the platform. The city said the Brooklyn Bridge station reached 96 degrees on average during the summer months.
Gothamist previously reported on subway station platforms that reached nearly 100 degrees last year.
The MTA published a request for information last September to look into the same geothermal technology for the 1 line’s 168th Street and 181st Street stations in Washington Heights, both of which are particularly warm because they’re so deep underground.
For that study, the transit agency explored cooling technology that should reach a target temperature of 82 to 85 degrees on a summer day for stations 120 feet underground.
According to the Mamdani administration, thermal energy networks are already used in hospitals and universities across the city, which moves heat between buildings. The Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall and Chamber St. feasibility study would look to transfer heat through “geothermal boreholes” drilled underneath the abandoned center platform at Chambers, then the excess heat could be stored in those boreholes.
“We are harnessing cutting-edge climate technology for a truly cool purpose: making our subway stations tolerable during the summer and heating critical city buildings during the winter,” Gov. Hochul said in a statement. “This is what effective partnership between city and state government can yield — innovative solutions that have the potential to help millions of subway riders.”
