181st Street Station. Photo by Famartin via Wikimedia

The MTA is exploring a new way to cool sweltering subway stations: geothermal technology. According to a request for information (RFI) published last week, the agency is considering a system that would use the Earth’s subsurface to transfer heat out of stations and store it elsewhere, to keep platforms between 82 and 85 degrees on hot days. As first reported by The City , the MTA is targeting the 1 line’s 168th Street and 181st Street stations, which rank among the system’s hottest because of their depth.

In practice, the system would use pumps to tap into the Earth below, cooling stations on hot days, and warming them on colder ones. The technology would also need to withstand steel dust concentrations, water conditions, vanda

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