Rats have infested multiple subway lines in lower Manhattan and often live right in the station walls, according to a rodent expert overseeing a new approach to battling the pests in the subway system.
Rats have lurked in New York’s subways for decades, and the transit agency’s solution has been to toss poison bait packs onto subway tracks, with lackluster results.
So now, the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority and city Health Department are attacking the problem by looking more closely at what attracts rats to the subway and keeps them there.
“We’re actually trying to measure what the factors are directly that cause rats to take advantage of certain stations and not others, so we’re putting some science into this,” said Robert Corrigan, a Health Department senior research scientist leading the effort.
He presented his findings yesterday to the Board of Health.
The first stage of the project focused on the subway lines that run through lower Manhattan below Canal Street, looking at 29 different factors in each station, including litter on tracks, holes in walls and the poison baits being used.
Half the lines were problematic, showing either signs of infestations or potential for them to occur.
Corrigan said the main attraction in many subway stations is the room where trash is stored after it is collected from cans on the platform. Rats typically live in the walls of those rooms, which are often located right on the train platforms.
A family of eight to 12 rats can make its home in one cinderblock, and every cinderblock in a wall can be occupied “much like we do with apartment buildings,” he added.
The pests present a very real danger, Corrigan said.
“Sometimes, when we wait for a train, [a rat] makes its appearance right on our waiting platform,” Corrigan said. “People have been frightened off the platform by these animals, so it’s not a thing to be taken lightly.”
The joint city-MTA program has been slowed by budget woes, Corrigan said, but he’s hoping for a new rat-control plan within a year or two.