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Subway users and public transport workers in major cities are being exposed to levels of air pollution that can increase the risk of heart and lung problems, according to a new study from New York University.
Researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine said that air quality readings, particularly on the PATH rail system that links New York and New Jersey and the New York City subway system, raise serious health problems and warrant further investigation.
The research, published on Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, analyzed the air quality of transit systems across the Northeast, including subways in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, during the morning and evening rush hours. He found that air quality was lower on platforms and improved slightly on air-conditioned trains.
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Dr. Terry Gordon, a professor in the school’s Department of Environmental Medicine and senior co-author of the study, said that all systems showed levels of pollution at least several times higher than those recommended by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The two systems in New York were the most polluted.
“The only saving grace is that not much time is spent on the subway system, whether on the train or on the platform,” said Dr. Gordon.
Many public transport workers spend most of their careers working in tunnels, stations and on board trains. Richard Clark, a representative of the PATH union for signage workers, said he found the study alarming.
Clark said many colleagues and former colleagues suffer from respiratory problems and cancer that they believe are caused by their work. He wants the New York and New Jersey Port Authority, which manages PATH, to invest more heavily in cleaning tunnels, platforms and other pollutant collection areas.
Port Authority spokesman Ben Branham said on Wednesday that the agency would review the study. “We take health and safety issues at our facilities extremely seriously,” he said.
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Tim Minton, a spokesman for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s subway system, said that previous air quality tests on his trains did not find any health risks, “however, we will completely review this study, because the safety of customers and employees is always our highest priority. “
Mr. Minton noted that NYU researchers sampled three of the system’s 472 subway stations and four of the nearly 1,000 daily trains. A union spokesman representing the majority of metro workers, Transport Workers Union Local 100, did not immediately comment.
The most polluted stations include Christopher Street station on PATH and Second Avenue station on subway line F.
NYU researchers believe that many of the pollutants in the subway systems they studied are related to steel dust created by the friction of train wheels against rails, carbon dust emanating from a part of a train that touches the third rail and emissions diesel soot from maintenance locomotives.
Steve Chillrud, a research professor at Columbia University who published a historical study on air quality in the New York subway system in 2004, said the levels of pollutants found by NYU researchers are worrying.
Dr. Chillrud noted that the NYU research underscored the need for more detailed investigation, such as an epidemiological study to assess the risk of riding the subway. “I think it’s a clear call to assess risk in future studies, but it’s still not a clear call to freak out,” he said.
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The research was conducted before the coronavirus pandemic, when the number of passengers on weekdays in PATH was an average of 300,000 passengers and the number of passengers on the subway on weekdays was on average 5.5 million.
The number of public transport passengers has plummeted across the country. Public transport agencies expect it to recover to levels close to the pandemic in the coming years.
Dr. Gordon said that fabric masks, which are now ubiquitous because of the pandemic, also reduce people’s exposure to poor air quality. If passengers wear masks after the pandemic, as many passengers do in Asia, he said, it would be beneficial to people’s health, especially passengers with underlying health problems.