According to a new study from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, pollutants thrown up by subway cars can make underground stations dirtier than the most polluted cities in the world.
Millions of U.S. subway riders and workers at risk for severe side effects from air pollution, study warns By Li Cohen
February 10, 2021 / 11:50 PM / CBS News
Millions of people in the northeast U.S. ride or work on subway systems every day. But while they re doing so, they are breathing in dangerously high levels of particles that may cause heart attacks, aggravate asthma or even lead to premature death, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Researchers from New York University analyzed the presence of PM2.5, airborne particles roughly 30 times smaller than a single hair from your head, in 71 subway stations. They focused on levels present during both morning and afternoon rush hours in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., some of the country s largest public transportation systems, in 2019 with the exception of Philadelphia, where the data was gathered in 2015.
Email
Commuters now have yet another reason to avoid packing themselves into subway stations. New York City’s transit system exposes riders to more inhaled pollutants than any other metropolitan subway system in the Northeastern United States, a new study finds. Yet even its “cleaner” neighbors struggle with enough toxins to give health-conscious travelers pause.
Led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine researchers, the study measured air quality samples in 71 stations at morning and evening rush hours in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Among the 13 underground stations tested in New York, the investigators found concentrations of hazardous metals and organic particles that ranged anywhere from 2 to 7 times that of outdoor air samples.