你可能会想，往地下挖些隧道、避开阳光，里面应该凉爽舒适才对。但只要往隧道里塞进列车、配套设备和上百万通勤者，等待你的就只有酷热难当了。
纽约地铁早就热得不适合乘车，而且不是一天两天。麻烦在于，它不像普通建筑——你不能装个中央空调就完事。于是管理部门开始寻找别的办法来对付这张著名地下路网的高温。
热量从哪来
过热问题并非纽约独有，世界各地的地下轨道系统都有类似情况；伦敦地铁以闷热难当著称，甚至有一段线路被戏称为"中央加热线"。原因很简单：列车、电机、闸瓦甚至乘客本身都在不停散热，热量在系统里不断累积。空调列车反而火上浇油——它们耗能把热量从车厢里搬出来，却直接排进周围的隧道，还顺带添了一点额外热量。更糟的是，很多地铁系统建成于一百多年前，空间狭窄，也没有为如今这种热负荷做过设计。
早在 1906 年，布鲁克林大桥站就尝试过用地下水给车站降温的方案。如今该站的更新改造再次被提上日程。
为什么空调行不通
建筑太热，通常第一反应就是开空调。但地铁的特殊性让这件事极难实施：地铁有绵延数英里、与站台连通的隧道，空调吹出的冷空气只会灌进这些巨大的空腔，局部效果甚微；而且地铁到处都是敞开的出入口。哪怕装上一堆大型 HVAC 机组，也只能杯水车薪。
纽约的选择：热能网络
纽约市政府与州府已经决定行动：计划研究把"热能网络"（Thermal Energy Network，TEN）应用到地铁系统中，作为布鲁克林大桥 4/5/6 线与钱伯斯街 J/Z 车站综合体升级改造的一部分。布鲁克林大桥 4/5/6 线夏季经常冲到 96°F（35°C），是全网最热的车站之一，正是降温措施的理想试点。
热能网络的设计目标是在建筑之间搬运热量——把它从不需要的地方挪到有用的地方。做法是向下钻出数百英尺深的网格状钻孔，那里的温度远为凉爽稳定，可低至 55°F（12°C）。随后把管道铺设到车站周围并接入钻孔。流体在车站管道里循环、带走地铁的热量，再流进钻孔把热量交出去并冷却，然后返回车站继续循环。
随着时间推移，钻孔周围的基岩被加热后，冬季可以当作一座"热电池"使用：让流体流进钻孔把热量取出来，再泵给寒冷月份需要供暖的其他市政建筑。
这项技术并不新鲜——地源钻孔在欧洲和加拿大已被用于制冷多年。纽约康尼岛甚至已有一套系统，用 153 口地热井为一栋 2019 年落成的公寓提供舒适环境。但要做出足以压低整个纽约地铁高温规模的系统，仍是挑战。目前这一步只是可行性研究，探索这种概念能否真正改善车站内的乘坐体验。一旦证明可行，通勤者对在全网乃至其他城市推广同类系统的呼声恐怕会非常强烈——挥汗如雨的地铁，也许真能成为历史，缺的只是工程能力与决心。
本文来源：https://hackaday.com/2026-09-29/geothermal-cooling-for-new-yorks-subways/
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You might think that if you dig tunnels underground and keep out the sunlight, the inside should be cool and comfortable. But once you pack those tunnels with trains, auxiliary equipment, and more than a million commuters, all that awaits you is unbearable heat.
New York's subway has long been too hot to ride in, and not just for a day or two. The problem is that it is not like an ordinary building—you cannot simply install central air conditioning and be done. So the management has begun looking for other ways to deal with the high temperatures in this famous underground network.
Where Does the Heat Come From
The overheating problem is not unique to New York; underground rail systems around the world face similar situations. The London subway is notorious for its stifling heat, and even one section of line has been jokingly called the "Central Heating Line." The reason is simple: trains, motors, brake shoes, and even the passengers themselves are constantly giving off heat, and the heat keeps accumulating within the system. Air-conditioned trains instead make things worse—they consume energy to move heat out of the carriages, only to dump it directly into the surrounding tunnels, while adding a little extra heat along the way. Worse still, many subway systems were built more than 100 years ago, have tight spaces, and were not designed for today's heat load.
As early as 1906, the Brooklyn Bridge station tried a scheme to cool the station using groundwater. Today, a renovation of the station has again been placed on the agenda.
Why Air Conditioning Does Not Work
When a building is too hot, the usual first reaction is to turn on air conditioning. But the specific nature of a subway makes this extremely difficult to implement: a subway has tunnels stretching for miles and connected to the platforms, and the cold air from air conditioners would simply flood into these huge cavities, with only a slight local effect; moreover, subways are full of open entrances and exits. Even if a number of large HVAC units were installed, it would only be a drop in the bucket.
New York's Choice: Thermal Energy Network
New York's city and state governments have decided to act: they plan to study applying a "Thermal Energy Network" (Thermal Energy Network, TEN) to the subway system as part of the upgrade and renovation of the Brooklyn Bridge 4/5/6 station and the Chambers Street J/Z station complex. The Brooklyn Bridge 4/5/6 station often spikes to 96°F (35°C) in summer, making it one of the hottest stations on the network and an ideal pilot for cooling measures.
The design goal of a Thermal Energy Network is to move heat between buildings—taking it from where it is not needed and moving it to where it is useful. This is done by drilling a grid of boreholes hundreds of feet down, where temperatures are far cooler and more stable, potentially as low as 55°F (12°C). Piping is then laid around the station and connected to the boreholes. The fluid circulates in the station pipes, carrying away heat from the subway, then flows into the boreholes to release the heat and cool down, and returns to the station to continue the cycle.
Over time, once the bedrock around the boreholes has been heated, it can be used in winter as a "heat battery": fluid flows into the boreholes to extract the heat, which is then pumped to other municipal buildings that need heating during the cold months.
This technology is not new—ground-source boreholes have been used for cooling in Europe and Canada for many years. New York's Coney Island even has a system that uses 153 geothermal wells to provide a comfortable environment for an apartment building completed in 2019. But building a system large enough to curb the extent of overheating across the entire New York subway system remains a challenge. At this stage, it is only a feasibility study exploring whether this concept can truly improve the riding experience inside stations. Once proven feasible, commuters' calls to roll out similar systems across the entire network and even in other cities will likely be very strong—a sweat-drenched subway may truly become a thing of the past, lacking only engineering capability and determination.