NEW YORK – Rats have infested multiple subway lines in lower Manhattan and often live right in the station walls, according to a rodent expert overseeing what officials say is a new approach to battling rats in the nation's largest subway system.

The persistent pests have lurked in New York's subways for decades, and the transit agency's solution has been to toss 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 meticulously at what attracts rats to the subway and keeps them there to make their homes.

"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, and also a PCT contributor.

He presented his findings on June 15 to the Board of Health.

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