Things I miss about America, Part IV: Air-conditioning in the Metro/Tube

Air-conditioning, something I truly loved about D.C’s metro system without even realizing it. Because, what underground system in the modern world would not have air-con?? Well, London’s, as it turns out.

For those of you who know London, you know that it actually doesn’t get very hot in this city. We’re much farther north than I had ever realized. I actually looked it up the other day because, all of a sudden, it started staying light out until 10:30 pm and becoming light again at 4:30 am. Strange, I thought, until I referred to a map.

As it turns out, London is more inline with Northern Canada than it is with New York, as I had mistakenly thought. Anyways, I digress. Since it’s not incredibly warm in the summers in this city, I guess the London Transport Authority never really saw the need to air-condition or even ventilate its underground system in any way. The problem with this? When you get thousands of people in a little hole under ground, it gets pretty darn hot. In addition, when you then cram those thousands of people all onto the same train, it becomes even hotter.

For those of you who really know me, you’ll know this is an extreme problem due to my tendency to faint on the Metro when it gets too crowded/hot. It has happened to me an embarrassing number of times in my life. I’ve gotten into the habit of lying to people and saying I’m pregnant, because, lets face it, a pregnant woman fainting on the metro is much less weird than some random girl fainting on the metro. The temperature on an average London Tube train makes my already hellish commute even worse.

The good news, the Mayor of London (who I have hated up until this announcement) recently said that London would start introducing air-con into the trains by 2010. Unfortunately, not on any of the lines that I regularly ride, but hey, it’s a start. Until then, I’ll take advantage of the free bottled water they’ve started handing out in the Tube on really hot days and keep trying to strategically place myself near the much coveted 2 ventilation holes on the train.