Joe Lhota wants to be the coolest MTA chairman ever.

The transit boss said Friday he wants a working air conditioner on every single subway car in the city this summer.

“New Yorkers deserve to be able to get into the system and not be overheated because the air conditioning is not working,” Lhota said. “I don’t want any hot cars.”

Last week’s cash infusion of $418 million from city coffers will allow the MTA to add 500 new workers to train yards, and many of those will be working on fixing air-conditioning units, said Lhota.

That’s in addition to the 900 new employees the agency hired last summer when Lhota launched the Subway Action Plan in response to the dire state of the system.

“Into the summer, I want to make sure that there are no hot cars,” Lhota said during a tour of an Inwood train yard.

“So we’re looking at each and every one of our air- conditioning units throughout the entire system and refurbishing them and getting them ready.”

Lhota also directed workers to keep dozens of backup units around in case of a breakdown, he said.

MTA officials said the agency had got between 12 and 16 hot car reports per day in summer of 2016, the most recent data they had available.

Article Source: https://nypost.com/2018/04/06/mta-boss-vow-no-more-sweltering-subways/

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