Jenny Torres, a florist who lives in Upper Manhattan, has noticed a change. Since October, she has been more out of breath and her son Joshua’s asthma has been aggravated more often. The two frequently use the 1 train to visit their family on 110th Street, and the effects of Manhattan’s air quality in the subway have become impossible to ignore.
“Around this area, 168th Street, it’s horrible,” said Torres. “They really need to get better ventilation in there [the subway station].”
Torres’s family is not alone in their concerns about local air pollution; users of the 1 train in both directions have reported a strange metallic, dusty taste in the air on the train station platform that is worse in the summer.
In recent decades, both the New York City and State governments have worked hard to lower air-polluting emissions and improve the quality of air in the local environment. Despite the progress, indoor pollutants remain persistent drivers of asthma and cardiovascular stress in the five boroughs. Experts are realizing that while outdoor air pollution levels are trending down, indoor air quality hasn’t seen the same progress.
On subway platforms, this issue is felt the strongest among the elderly, children, and those with underlying health conditions. As the hot summer months approach, the conditions in the New York City subway system become a focus of environmental health. The platforms are notorious for trapping underground air with poor ventilation, and that has prompted concerns about air quality in the subway system, particularly in Black and Latino communities.
“Every time I walk in [to the 168th subway station], I’m hit with stuffiness immediately,” said Nicole Odibo, a resident of Washington Heights and a student at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who takes the subway twice daily. “There is an uncomfortable congestion in the air, and a certain odor that isn’t present at other stations. I find myself covering my nose and mouth with a cloth to filter out the smell of whatever particles I’m breathing in.”
The source of her discomfort has been traced directly to small particles of liquids and solids that can remain suspended in the air for prolonged periods, called PM2.5. These particles are about 30 times smaller than a human hair, and they may enter the lungs and increase the risk of wheezing, shortness of breath, and general symptoms of asthma when exposure increases.
In subway stations, these tiny particles, made up of iron and black carbon, are generated from the friction of the wheels, rails, and the brakes on a subway car each time it comes to a stop. Usually, subway stations are equipped with a ventilation system to clear the air, but many subway stations in low-income neighborhoods have outdated infrastructures that cannot keep up with the level of pollutants.
In Washington Heights, a predominantly Latino community, the extent of the air pollution problem has been recorded by a local project led by WE ACT, which has found that indicators of a decrease can be misleading. “While PM2.5 has been going down year after year, this doesn’t mean that indoor contaminants are equally decreasing,” said Valentina Rojas, WE ACT’s environmental health manager. “The problem of indoor pollutants has made it necessary to push elected officials to invest in updates [that] produce visible health impacts.”
The effects of pollution exposure are stated in the data: In Washington Heights, PM2.5 asthma hospitalizations for children ages 5–17 are among the highest in the city, and while NYC has made significant progress, there still seems to be a gap in the city’s indoor air pollutants.
Along with subway platforms in the Heights, similar effects exist in the Bronx, downtown Brooklyn, and downtown Manhattan, especially in Black, Latino, and Asian communities. It is in these same areas that the underground PM2.5 level has been higher than most other parts of the city.
Conversely, downtown and midtown Manhattan are central business hubs and mainly inhabited by white workers who live in close proximity to their jobs. This means shorter commutes, and significantly lower exposure to underground PM2.5. The large racial disparity in exposure to subway air pollutants highlights a systemic failure in infrastructure maintenance; the burden of this issue is borne mainly by Black and Latino communities of NYC.
People living in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, and downtown Brooklyn also face an apparent double jeopardy when it comes to their health: They tend to face both longer commutes and worse quality subway infrastructure.
Research conducted by New York University pointed out that residents in these areas cannot tend to not work near their homes, with 35% of workers in Brooklyn, 29% in Queens, and 22% in the Bronx working in the same borough where they live, forcing longer subway commutes and more PM2.5 exposure risk. “This discrepancy is partly attributed to the reliance on the subway system among lower-income populations, who have limited access to alternative transportation options like private vehicles or carpool services,” the report said. “Conversely, many affluent workers can avoid lengthy subway commutes by living in proximity to their workplaces.”
Interestingly, while lots of evidence has recorded the worrisome air quality in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods, the effects of this problem have been reviewed by experts at the New York City Department of Health. City officials say that while there are risks of short term exposures to PM2.5 as subway users wait on the platforms, much of these particles are filtered out by the ventilation systems in the train car. Meanwhile, the MTA said it is tackling tunnel pollution directly by investing $386 million in cleaner hybrid maintenance locomotives, slated for use starting in 2027 to improve subterranean air quality.
