En route, cooling fans for T stations
Passengers glad, but say trains need help, too
By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | June 1, 2007
The MBTA will finally offer some relief for commuters sweltering in subway and bus stations during the summer.
Starting this month, special cooling fans will be installed in most downtown underground stations to lower the air temperature, in some cases by 15 to 25 degrees, and to reduce humidity.
At open-air bus stations, including Dudley Square and Sullivan Square, the T plans to put in misting fans, like those on the sidelines at football games. In other stations, such as State, Park Street, Harvard, and Hynes, evaporative coolers will be used.
The fans will not make stations feel like air-conditioned shopping malls, said Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
"There's no way we're going to make the stations chilly on an oppressively hot day," he said. "But when you get off the bus or the subway, it will certainly be more comfortable."
The fans are part of the T's push to improve customer service, he said. Many passengers complained during the heat wave last August when station temperatures reached 100 degrees. Crowded conditions and waste heat from T trains made the problem worse.
Passengers interviewed last evening at the JFK/UMass station welcomed the new equipment, but said they want the trains to be cooler, too.
"When it gets really hot, it starts to stink and get musty," said Veronica Andrade, 15, of Quincy, who takes the Red and Green lines. "The trains are worse, but cooling the stations would help."
Alex Sprung, 22, of Boston takes the Green Line to the New England Conservatory of Music. "There are some stations that are particularly hot, like Government Center," he said. "That's good in the winter, but not when it's really hot outside."
"The train station is not really a place where you spend a lot of time," he added. "I would rather have a nice temperature in the train than in the station."
The station cooling program is part of a push to place reliable air conditioning throughout the T system.
All buses bought in the last few years have been air conditioned. The Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, which runs commuter rail for the T, is refurbishing air-conditioning units in coaches. Even the old coaches on the Mattapan high-speed line are being retrofitted with air conditioning.
The effort is also good for the T's trains. Subway-air conditioning units struggle in such conditions, and coaches lose valuable cool air when their doors open at overheated stations.
Cooling T stations is tricky, especially for the nation's oldest subway, where circulation fans were the most high-tech equipment available. In extreme heat, those fans do little but move superheated air around.
All of the new equipment is being tested.
The evaporative coolers are showing promising results, said T officials, who tested a unit on the Winter Street concourse connecting Park Street with Downtown Crossing yesterday.
More of those coolers will be placed at Winter Street and at the Chauncy Street concourse by June 7. Stations getting the units include Chinatown, Downtown Crossing, State, North, Government Center, Bowdoin, Haymarket, Park, Boylston, Hynes, Alewife, Central, South, and Harvard.
While vent fans worked well at South Station on the Silver Line and at Broadway and Andrew stations on the Red Line, they did little to cool temperatures at Downtown Crossing or South Station on the Red Line, said a T document.
T officials had considered using misting fans for subway stations, but worried that the moisture would make platforms slippery and damage electrical equipment.
They also considered cooling tents, like those used at Fenway Park on particularly hot days, but decided they posed a security and safety risk. "Lighting, fire hazards, egress impacts, security/safety and available stations lobby/platform space are limiting (or possibly prohibiting) factors," says a T overview of the cooling project.
The T will use emergency ventilation fan systems during heat emergencies, but they can cause problems, including noise and flying trash.
Globe correspondent Elizabeth Ratto contributed to this report. Mac Daniel can be reached at
mdaniel@globe.com.
