Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

New York Today

New York Today: The Slippery Subway Mystery

It could get dangerous down below.Credit...Gregory Bull/Associated Press

Updated, 10:36 a.m.

Good morning on this messy Wednesday.

As you head out today, watch your step.

A devil’s brew of snow, sleet and rain in the forecast may make streets and sidewalks slick.

Down in the subway, the footing might be even more treacherous: Has it ever seemed to you that on snowy or slushy days, station floors get unusually slippery?

We’re not talking about wet spots. We mean platforms and passageways that feel like greased-up slip-and-slides.

If you’ve wondered what that lubey layer was, you’re not alone.

Our New York Times colleague Erin McCann recently asked on Twitter, “Has New York seemed … more slippery this week? Not frozen ice, but like a fine film of soap all over the subway floor?”

Users responded with anecdotes about face planting in Brooklyn, gingerly tiptoeing through corridors and “skating” in Vans across platforms.

People have been hurt. Last month, Chris Wilson, 39, a software developer, needed eight stitches after slipping on the escalator at the South Ferry station.

“I wasn’t walking down,” he said. “I wasn’t actually doing anything. My foot just sort of slipped out from under me. It was definitely the slickness on the floor.”

Theories have emerged. Some blame ice melt, which can leave an oily residue when tracked in from the street. Others have suggested car exhaust or discarded fried chicken grease.

We asked the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Shams Tarek, a spokesman, said the slippery floors are from the combination of rain and snow tracked in from the street, other substances brought in on shoes, and high humidity in stations that traps moisture.

The buildup on the subway floor — from shoes, trash, spills and exhaust — contains substances that dissolve in water, like salt and sugars, along with oily compounds, which don’t, explained Sanat Kumar, a professor of chemical engineering at Columbia University.

You just don’t notice the oily stuff until it rains or snows because it’s caked together on the subway tile with everything else.

“Once you add water, whatever didn’t dissolve is going to be oily,” Professor Kumar said. On nonporous subway tiles, where hardly anything is absorbed, the slick stuff just sits on the surface.

As for why floors can seem more slippery on snowy days than on rainy days, Professor Kumar theorized, “It’s easier to carry snow in on your shoes, so you’ll have more water on the snowy days.”

(Update: Some readers have speculated that the M.T.A. has changed the kind of cleaning fluid it uses. It has not, Mr. Tarek said.)

For now, the M.T.A. said it would continue to mop aggressively after both snow and rain — the latter of which is expected to fall for much of the rest of the day.

Look for a high around 42. Tomorrow: clearing but colder.

Here’s what else is happening:

The National Transportation Safety Board officially concluded that failure to screen for sleep apnea in engineers has caused train crashes, including one in Hoboken, N.J., in late 2016, and another in Brooklyn last year. [New York Times]

Image
A Long Island Rail Road commuter train crashed inside the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn last year, injuring more than 100 people.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

A federal judge in Brooklyn has ruled that when Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, goes on trial in September, the jury will be anonymous. [New York Times]

Testimony from the government’s star witness in a high-level Albany corruption trial continued Tuesday, offering a vivid and sometimes shadowy look at the inner workings of the State Capitol. [New York Times]

In a dramatic City Council hearing, officials said that 323,000 public housing residents had lost heat at least once since October. [New York Times]

MetroCard machines will not accept credit cards from 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Saturday while the computer system is upgraded. [New York Times]

Image
MetroCard machines will not accept credit cards from 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Saturday, while the computer system that runs the machines is upgraded.Credit...Christopher Gregory The New York Times

An 11-year-old boy died in the hospital after falling through the ice of a Queens pond. [The New York Times]

The “Saloon Priest,” Rev. Peter M. Colapietro, a New York personality who served Theater District parishes and was a regular at the neighborhood’s celebrity hangouts, died on Monday. [New York Times]

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was not in favor of the Manhattan district attorney’s idea to let subway turnstile jumpers off easy. [New York Post]

Already the largest tenant at the Chelsea Market building, Google might be buying the property. [The Real Deal]

After Danny Meyer eliminated tipping at the Union Square Hospitality Group, he said, a sizable portion of his restaurant staff quit. [Eater NY]

Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “It Happened by Lincoln Center

For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Morning Briefing.

Buy your Valentine something sweet at a chocolatier on Brooklyn’s chocolate trail map. Store hours vary. [Free to explore]

Jason Priestley talks about, and screens, his new TV series “Private Eyes” at The Paley Center for Media in Midtown. 6:30 p.m. [$20]

Learn about the evolution of trilobites from a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side. 7 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P.]

Join a monthly jazz session, or just listen, at Flushing Town Hall in Queens. 7 p.m. [$10, free for jamming musicians]

Rangers host Bruins, 8 p.m. (NBCS).

Alternate-side parking remains in effect until Feb. 12.

For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.

Image
State Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas took on the Tide Pod Challenge in Albany yesterday.Credit...Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Speaking of dangerous substances, there are local developments on the Tide pod challenge front.

For those who have somehow managed to avoid hearing about the phenomenon, Tide pods are candy-colored packets of laundry detergent and people have been posting videos of their attempts to eat them, some of which result in injury.

Yesterday, a Manhattan state senator and a Queens assemblywoman called for a state law requiring detergent companies to make their products look less yummy.

If you are determined to participate in the challenge — safely — a few local businesses have come up with alternatives.

The Barcelona Bar in Midtown is now serving a Tide pod shot.

And Vinnie’s Pizzerias in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are offering garish-looking “Pied Pods” that have the “bright, alluring colors that youths crave BUT are 100 percent edible and 100 percent not soap.”

New York Today is a morning roundup that is published weekdays at 6 a.m. If you don’t get it in your inbox already, you can sign up to receive it by email here.

For updates throughout the day, like us on Facebook.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com, or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Follow the New York Today columnists, Alexandra Levine and Jonathan Wolfe, on Twitter.

You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com.

Jonah Bromwich contributed reporting.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT