Harlem Bus Stops Are Manhattan’s Hottest: Study

HARLEM, NY – Harlem bus stops are the hottest in Manhattan, according to a new study from Transportation Alternatives.

Bus stops in City Council District 9, which covers most of the neighborhood, average 8.8 degrees of additional heat, the hottest average of any Manhattan district, with the neighborhood’s warmest stops experiencing about 11 degrees of additional heat, a spokesperson for Transportation Alternatives told Patch.

Stops along Frederick Douglass, Adam Claypton Powell, and Malcolm X, are particularly impacted, as are stops along 116th Street.

How hot is your stop? An interactive map is available here.

Citywide, only one in three bus stops is currently shaded, the study found, and only one in five stops has a shelter.

Transportation Alternatives worked with the NASA DEVELOP Environmental Justice team to measure summer daytime temperature data at bus stops across the city using thermal heat imaging satellites.

Harlem is one of the city’s heat vulnerable neighborhoods, where high temperatures pose a significant risk of injury or death.

Heat kills an estimated 350 New Yorkers every summer, according to NYC Health, and black New Yorkers are particularly at risk, with a heat-stress death rate that is twice as high as that of white New Yorkers.