Wear a mask cuz subway air is filthy

[Deucey]

https://champ.gothamist.com/champ/gothamist/news/nyc-subway-air-not-specifically-too-good-study-says

After researchers found New York’s MTA and PATH stations are the most polluted among northeastern train systems, researchers are saying straphangers and workers could keep doing something most are already acquainted with during the COVID-19 pandemic: wearing a mask.

Researchers from New York University found New York and New Jersey had the highest amount of a toxin called particulate matter 2.5—a microscopic particle tiny enough to spread deeper into your respiratory system or seep into your bloodstream. PM2.5, a pollutant often measured in air quality research, is linked to asthma as well as lung and heart problems.

Scientists collected 300 air samples in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston, and along PATH and Long Island Rail Road lines from 71 stops. The PATH had the highest concentrations of PM2.5, followed by the MTA’s subway stops, Washington D.C., Boston, and Philadelphia, according to the study published in Environmental Health Perspectives. 

“New York City had, in general, sometimes double the amount of air pollution in the subway stations than the other cities,” said senior author Terry Gordon, an environmental medicine professor at NYU Langone, told Gothamist/WNYC. The Christopher Street PATH station was ranked the worst for PM2.5 at 1,499 of the particulate matter per micrograms of cubic meters, which was 1.5 times that of the highest sample found in the MTA system. Gordon said lead author and PhD candidate David Luglio had to test the station multiple times to confirm the data because it was so surprising.

“These levels were shocking,” Gordon said.

More research would be needed to assess the air quality differences between transit systems, and researchers said they did not collect all factors that could determine this. But the samples collected across the Northeastern cities were all two to seven times what is considered healthy under the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards.

Subway riders can expect to have a short-term exposure to the pollution. But the risk is mitigated by the reality that commuters may not be on the platform for an extended amount of time and—during the COVID-19 pandemic—most people are wearing masks.

“That’s actually helping even if it’s a cloth face mask,” Gordon said.

Ilias Kavouras, a City University of New York professor at the Department of Environmental, Occupational, and Geospatial Health Sciences, echoed that advice.

“We’re very familiar with that right now,” Kavouras said. “We might as well continue.”

Gordon said he would still go to the polluted Christopher Street station if he needed to, but he is also interested to see if people will continue to wear a mask after the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to negate the health impacts from air pollution.

Workers should be the most concerned since they’re in subway stations for longer periods of time, Gordon and Kavouras said, and NYU’s researchers hope to work with transit authorities to solve the problem.

Kavouras, who studies air pollution and its impacts on human health, said the findings were an “alarm” to indicate more research should be conducted on the source of pollution and exposure to transit workers by fastening air quality measures to their person. The latter is a research method called personal monitoring.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s executive director Rick Cotton said at a Thursday board meeting that officials are “obviously concerned” and will be looking closely at the study.

“We are totally committed to protecting the health and safety of our workers, we are totally committed to protecting the health and safety of PATH riders, and we will dig into this, come to conclusions, and if necessary develop an appropriate action plan to address it,” Cotton said at the meeting.

The MTA said that it would review the study’s findings, but previous air quality tests found no health risks due to air pollutants. The authority also said the study looked at a small fraction of MTA stations. Gordon said their take may be reasonable, but there is no evidence of zero health risks.

So what should transit and public health officials do to mitigate the risk? That’s more complicated.

Gordon says finding the source of emissions and eliminating that source is the best route. Most of the particles were made up of iron, presumably from friction between the wheels of the train and the rail, as well as carbon from the part of the train that rubs against the third rail. Diesel-powered trains do operate in the subway, but mostly overnight for repair or maintenance work.

“Eliminating a diesel engine might be easy,” Gordon said. “Eliminating the particles given off by the wheels rubbing up against the rails, that would not be very, very easy to to mediate.”

[Deucey]

My thoughts:

 Interesting how with this overnight shutdown for cleaning they’re not scrubbing the tunnel walls and track beds - those shouldn’t be black

 How many of these drainage pipes in the system could both use some unclogging and sludge removal, along with some bleach to kill the bacteria emanating from them?

 On that part citing the third rail friction  as the cause, I wonder if that’s why Paris Métro’s third rail system is a vertical contact shoe in a housing

 On that part about wheel friction with the rail, would a rubber tire conversion clean the air

/fin

[Via Garibaldi 8]

5 minutes ago, Deucey said:

My thoughts:

 Interesting how with this overnight shutdown for cleaning they’re not scrubbing the tunnel walls and track beds - those shouldn’t be black

 How many of these drainage pipes in the system could both use some unclogging and sludge removal, along with some bleach to kill the bacteria emanating from them?

 On that part citing the third rail friction  as the cause, I wonder if that’s why Paris Métro’s third rail system is a vertical contact shoe in a housing

 On that part about wheel friction with the rail, would a rubber tire conversion clean the air

/fin

Scrubbing the tunnel walls and track beds? Please. lol Now you're really smoking.

[Deucey]

10 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Scrubbing the tunnel walls and track beds? Please. lol Now you're really smoking.

Decades of metal on metal dust and water intrusion means those walls definitely have to have black mold or mildew on them.

Not to mention all the trash that used to be in the trackways, and human waste from homeless and others.

But it’s like I said in the other thread - other TAs budgeted in state of good repair and décor maintenance into their budgets, while  didn’t buy so much as a bottle of Fabuloso until COVID.

[R10 2952]

Can't be worse than the filthy air I encountered just walking on the street in Los Angeles and Houston.  I wonder how many respiratory illnesses that brown cloud of perpetual smog causes.

Edited February 15, 2021 by R10 2952

[B35 via Church]

Yeah & pretty soon, somebody's gonna come out with a study that people should be wearing masks in their own homes because the housing stock in this city, large in part, are pre-war & therefore, contain asbestos in them.....

Whether all this is valid or not, this passive ploy to get people to wear masks for reasons other than covid (because you have people that aren't wearing masks due to covid) have gotten real silly at this point.....

 

[Deucey]

52 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Whether all this is valid or not, this passive ploy to get people to wear masks for reasons other than covid (because you have people that aren't wearing masks due to covid) have gotten real silly at this point.....

Or it’s highlighting how dirty things are and aiming to make leaders actually invest in cleaning things/environmental protection so it brings down astronomical healthcare costs by reducing occurrences of pathogens and particulates that cause respiratory ailments that require intensive and expensive treatments.

[B35 via Church]

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

Or it’s highlighting how dirty things are and aiming to make leaders actually invest in cleaning things/environmental protection so it brings down astronomical healthcare costs by reducing occurrences of pathogens and particulates that cause respiratory ailments that require intensive and expensive treatments.

Sure, with multiple mentions of covid in the article..... Some coincidence....

[QM1to6Ave]

I wonder what those DEP air quality monitoring machines I see in some stations actually monitor for...I think it is for anti-bio terror purposes, but steel dust seems like a more realistic enemy 

[Trainmaster5]

Just a few observations about the air quality underground. 

Work trains,  whether single diesel or multi diesel ( roadmasters) were notorious for spewing particulates into the air. I got away from them as soon as I could pick anything. Perhaps some posters are old enough to remember when RTO started to require M/M and T/O to wear light blue pinstriped uniforms. Road M/M had 3 jackets, 3 pairs of pants, and 3 Bible overalls,  IIRC. After a few months of use no dry cleaners would touch them. Commercial laundering places also forbid them.  In both cases they said that the dirty uniforms damaged their machines. The culprit was determined to be " steel dust ". I remember operating on the West Side IRT  and you could see that stuff floating in the air between 96th and 50th St during the daytime and early evening hours on sunny days. 

After 9/11 on the Lexington lines we were ordered to turn off the AC trainline between Union Square and Borough Hall,  Brooklyn and wore masks because of the asbestos and other particulates in the air. I believe that we had a 10 or 15 mph speed limit through the area so we didn't stir up anything on the platform or roadbed.  I still remember Christine Todd Whitman and President Bush declaring the air was safe down there,  which most transit employees knew wasn't true. 

We were finally told that the masks weren't necessary anymore but a friend of mine,  a Union official, refused to go maskless afterwards and he eventually prevailed,  IIRC.

Tunnel walls?  I don't think that they ever got washed regularly unless it was overnight and/or a work area. After 9/11 some security measures were taken in the Joralemon tubes where some cleanup was done.  Probably because the contractors demanded it before work commenced. 

Roadbeds?  Two of my friends operated the Vacuum Train, when it wasn't broken down,  as their assigned job.  They dealt with the accumulated rodent, and later human,  excrement that piled up over the prior 100 years. They were the main reason I would never eat anything while I was underground. Heck,  we were all taught that in school car. 

Basically all one can do is be aware of your risks and limit your exposure as best you can when underground.  Carry on. 

 

[B35 via Church]

1 hour ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Basically all one can do is be aware of your risks and limit your exposure as best you can when underground.  Carry on.

Or refrain from taking the subway altogether if you're that paranoid of a germaphobe.

[NewFlyer 230]

It’s funny because I just read an article talking about the air quality of the subway systems in NYC.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2021/02/10/nyc-subway-has-filthiest-air-of-all-northeast-transit-study/amp/

 

[Trainmaster5]

We had many coworkers who wouldn't eat in the underground crew rooms . You'd usually find them on the open air platforms or off the property completely. Take a look around the Utica-Eastern Parkway station outside and the fast food locations in the vicinity. As long as it wasn't inclement weather Bus Operators,  Surface Dispatchers and RTO were everywhere. Mickey D's, Blimpies,  and the chicken joint. The benches on the Parkway should have been labeled " For TA employees only ". Funny thing is that RTO employees were not supposed to be off the property as long as we were on the clock but no one ever enforced that. As long as you weren't involved in an incident. Then you are on your own. I got so used to eating before I started work or after I got off the job that even after being retired for 10 years I still don't eat after 1 PM until about 10 PM normally. My body adapted to that schedule and I got comfortable with it. Different strokes for different folks.  Carry on. 

[B35 via Church]

56 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

We had many coworkers who wouldn't eat in the underground crew rooms . You'd usually find them on the open air platforms or off the property completely. Take a look around the Utica-Eastern Parkway station outside and the fast food locations in the vicinity. As long as it wasn't inclement weather Bus Operators,  Surface Dispatchers and RTO were everywhere. Mickey D's, Blimpies,  and the chicken joint. The benches on the Parkway should have been labeled " For TA employees only ". Funny thing is that RTO employees were not supposed to be off the property as long as we were on the clock but no one ever enforced that. As long as you weren't involved in an incident. Then you are on your own. I got so used to eating before I started work or after I got off the job that even after being retired for 10 years I still don't eat after 1 PM until about 10 PM normally. My body adapted to that schedule and I got comfortable with it. Different strokes for different folks.  Carry on. 

Off topic, but that's pretty funny to me - worrying about air quality while eating fast food 😄😄