Four Ways the NYC Subway System Helps the Environment

There are a lot of reasons to enjoy riding the New York City subway system: It’s convenient, it’s inexpensive, you don’t have to deal with parking and some of the musicians are pretty awesome (especially the mariachi band that plays on the F train). And, there’s a whole subset of reasons that have to do with being environmentally friendly. Here are a few of them:

Taking mass transit reduces your carbon footprint. Because NYC subway trains run on electrified rails, they produce virtually no carbon dioxide (aside from their heating and cooling systems). According to the EPA, the average car produces about 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year — an amount that would be offset by 242 tropical trees. Also, starting in 2000, many NYC buses began running on alternative, cleaner-burning fuels, further helping to keep carbon dioxide emissions down.

The Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station in Brooklyn utilizes solar power.

The subway system recycles. The system supports recycling efforts in several different ways. For one, it has recycled thousands of tons of construction waste that otherwise would have gone into a landfill. Additionally, the system collects and sorts recyclable materials from trash bins and designated recycling bins on the subway platforms. According to the NYC Transit website, in 2008, the system’s 468 subway stations yielded 8,444 tons of recyclables, or approximately 50% of all refuse removed from the system — one of the highest recycling rates for a transit system in the country. The system also recycles old train cars and equipment (in 2008, about 763 tons of recyclables were taken from train yards and other locations).

The system has a green-building program. A lot of New Yorkers may not even know this (I certainly didn’t), but the NYC transit system does a lot to reduce the environmental impact of construction and expansion projects. For instance, it utilizes construction materials made of recycled content, uses heat recovery units in many projects to reduce a building’s ventilation energy load and uses eco-friendly fuel cells whenever possible to generate electricity for powering motors, lights, buildings. One of the systems maintenance facilities in Queens is even LEED certified.

The system works to conserve water and electricity. This is another one I bet a lot of New Yorkers aren’t aware of: At least two stations in the subway system — the Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station in Brooklyn and the Roosevelt Avenue-74th Street station in Queens — are partially powered by solar panels on the roofs. Another interesting fact is that the Grand Avenue bus depot and maintenance facility in Brooklyn has a bus-washing reclamation system with a 200,000-gallon underground tank that stores rainwater collected from the roof of the building. The system also purchases mostly Energy Star electrical equipment and uses florescent light bulbs in the subway tunnels, which burn for 7,500 to 10,000 hours, compared to 750 hours for incandescent bulbs.

All of that is pretty cool! Now I just have to try and remember these things when the G train is delayed and I’m standing on a crowded subway platform for 45 minutes.