With the brutal summer heat taking over, it’s safe to say that below ground tends to feel much hotter than outside.
Last week, the Regional Plan Association, an urban policy research and advocacy group, took to NYC’s subway stations with a thermometer tracking the temperatures of 10 of the city’s busiest stations, and 19 subway stops in total.
What they found was that the heat on some platforms reach dangerously high levels. They looked on August 9th, a day where the outside temperature was 86-degrees Fahrenheit. Underground, however, was registering into the high 90’s and low 100’s! Most notably was the 4/5/6 platform at Union Square which reached 104-degrees!
The average temperature from their study was 94.6, with the best platform being the A/C/E at Penn Station which was no hotter than outside (86-degrees). Of course time of day is likely a factor, but if you think the subway station you frequent is basically 100-degrees, it’s safe to say that it probably is.
Here’s a full list of all the stations they stopped by:
And they went back out the next day to test more platforms, listed below:
