The Air Conditioning Conundrum

This post from the blog Going Underground says it all. It’s been four years since the Mayor of London announced a cash prize to the person who could solve the air-conditioning problem on the Underground. The competition is now closed. According to the city’s website, here are the best solutions for beating the heat:


- Always carry a bottle of cold water with you.

- If you feel faint, go above ground for some fresh air. Don't hesitate to ask a member of staff for help if you need it.

- If you feel dizzy don't pull the emergency cord between stations. This will only leave you stuck on a train in a stuffy tunnel.

- If trains are stopped in the tunnels for whatever reason on a hot day, don't panic. If a train breaks down getting passengers out is a top priority for Underground staff.

Carry a water bottle and don’t panic?! Please tell me nobody got any prize money for that brilliant advice.

Seriously, what is so complicated about installing air-conditioned trains? The Mayor’s website lists two main excuses. First, Ken points out that the London Underground is over 100 years old. Nice try Dude, but New York’s subway is just as old. Reason number two makes a bit more sense: apparently, the real difficulty in London is that their train system is far deeper underground than ours. They can't just replace the older cars with modern air-conditioned ones because the tunnels do not have adequate ventilation systems.

Ironically, air-conditioning creates heat and that heat would have to be pumped out. With no ventilation, the system would literally melt down. Any attempt to install the proper air vents would be massively disruptive and expensive—in other words, a political nonstarter.

One would think that finding a workable solution to this problem would be a top priority as the city prepares to host the Olympics. Yet amazingly there’s no mention on the London 2012 website of air-conditioning the Tube. Are they hoping that spectators just won't notice the heat? Maybe they're planning to sell London 2012 water bottles.