New York City’s subway system continues to confront significant challenges in managing stormwater, as outdated pumping infrastructure struggles to keep pace with increasing and more frequent heavy rainfall events. Recent storms, including Hurricane Ida, have exposed vulnerabilities in the city’s flood defense mechanisms, particularly underground where aging equipment faces growing pressure.

Despite substantial investments following Hurricane Sandy in fortifying the city’s 520 miles of coastline against storm surges, these efforts have not effectively addressed inland flooding caused by intense rainfall. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), responsible for operating the subway, has received comparatively limited federal funding for recovery and resilience projects—tens of millions of dollars rather than the billions allocated after Sandy—which has constrained its ability to modernize critical infrastructure.

A focal point illustrating these challenges is the pumping station at the 116th Street subway station. The pump room, located off the southbound platform, dates back to World War I and has gone largely unrepaired since the 1980s. It is one of 286 similar facilities dispersed throughout the underground network. On a normal day, these pump rooms collectively expel around 13 million gallons of subterranean water, but during storms, this volume can increase by tens of millions of gallons.

Inside the compact pump room, roughly the size of a typical New York City apartment bedroom, water drains into a large sump pit before four pumps discharge it into the city’s sewage system. Two of these pumps are pneumatic and operate at about half the capacity of their two electric counterparts, underscoring the system’s mechanical limitations. The equipment requires regular inspections, especially before anticipated rain events, but maintenance relies on dated practices, including logging records in decades-old notebooks with faded typefaces.

MTA officials acknowledge that while a $477 million capital allocation has been approved to upgrade 14 such pump rooms, much of the network’s pumping infrastructure remains antiquated. The agency’s objective is to minimize the amount of stormwater infiltrating the subway system and to ensure existing pumps provide the first line of defense against flooding.

Wilson, a climate adaptation expert with experience battling the effects of drought and wildfires in Colorado and managing hurricane recovery efforts in Samoa, has focused his career on addressing New York City’s climate vulnerabilities. Since transitioning into climate mitigation roles within city government, he has worked on multiple initiatives, including basement flood prevention, electric vehicle infrastructure, building code updates, and, notably, reinforcing subway flood resilience following Sandy’s devastation in Queens and other neighborhoods.

The persistent trickle of water into the 116th Street sump pit, visible even on dry, cloudless days, serves as a constant reminder of the vast quantities of water that existing subway systems must contend with—underscoring the urgency of modernizing infrastructure to meet the realities of a changing climate.