Securing the T

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) subway system is perhaps the most underappreciated public resource in the Boston area. Although many grumble over its inconveniences, few could do without it, and many quite literally need it to survive. We may lament its early closing time or uneven schedule, but without the ‘T,’ vast swaths of the public, not just we tight-budgeted students, would be hamstrung.

Nevertheless, our subway is in trouble—the perennially underfinanced T is not nearly as secure as it should be from terrorist attack.

History, as well as common sense, shows that mass transportation systems are a particularly attractive target for terrorists—the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo Tokyo subway attack, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, and the 2005 London subway bombings are proof enough. But while the federal government has undertaken a massive and fairly successful campaign to beef up airline security, measures to secure local mass transportation systems have lagged far behind, whether as a result of wrangling over the disbursement of lucrative homeland security grants at the state level, lack of initiative at the local level, or plain old bureaucratic foot-dragging at every level.

A recent report authored by the office of Massachusetts State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios ’90 (D-Cambridge), chairman of the Joint Committee of Public Safety and Homeland Security, suggests that the T has been one of the prime victims of this syndrome. “If there were an attack today, the first responders to a T attack are, by all accounts, not any better prepared than they would have been five years ago,” Barrios told the Boston Globe.

It is unconscionable, for example, that five years after Sept. 11, MBTA police officers still don’t possess the adequate technology to communicate with local fire departments or ambulance services and will not be able to do so for at least 18 more months. In addition to better communications equipment, Barrios’ report calls for the hiring of 100 more MBTA police officers, for full-scale subway terrorism drills, and for better allocation of federal homeland security money to help local communities outside of Boston proper to secure their T infrastructure. All are necessary measures to improve the safety of the subway and its passengers.

Officials from the MBTA have characterized Barrios’ report as overwrought, pointing out that the T is in the middle of a security initiative to upgrade its surveillance cameras, with 310 installed now and 200 more planned. But we remain unconvinced that enough has been done to make the Boston subway system as secure as it needs to be. We strongly support Barrios in his efforts to appropriate enough money to plug these holes.

Moreover, it’s frightening that Beacon Hill has placed such a low priority on the MBTA that the safety of T riders is in doubt. Whether the current situation has arisen intentionally, it turns our stomachs to see wealthier commuters driving to work on a massively expensive highway system when the MBTA system, which has a ridership largely composed of those in the lower income tax brackets, continues to struggle financially. With a projected $70 million deficit (or 27 percent of its annual operating budget) for the coming fiscal year, the largest debt service of any transit agency in the nation, stagnating tax revenue, and a legal obligation to be financially self sufficient, security is just one of the MBTA’s many worries. And the least the state government can do is to make sure that the MBTA continues to have the resources necessary so that it can continue to safely serve the regions riders and communities. Maybe the Red Line won’t ever be as safe as the airlines, but right now, it’s nowhere close.