Anti-Terror Class Eye-Opener for MTA

By Marlene Naanes, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Oct. 11–Q train operator James Gamble is equipped with excerpts of al-Qaida training manuals and a rundown of a terrorist attack in Japan.

The MTA is giving the 20-year-plus veteran and 28,000 more of the agency’s front-line employees the lowdown on how terrorists attack so subway and bus employees can help protect the transit system daily.

The first round of security and emergency response training classes for transit employees began last week, a reiteration of MTA protocol for some, but eye-opening for others.

“A lot of it we already do,” Gamble said after a class Wednesday. “Showing people how terrorists plan their attack, that’s new.”

Former city police detective John Turner armed Gamble and his fellow employees with training that will help them identify dangerous situations and act as first responders. The course was created by the National Transit Institute of Rutgers University and EAI, a homeland security consultant group.

The training will reach all bus employees in about two years and all subway personnel in 18 months. After that, Metro- North and Long Island Rail Road employees will receive similar training.

The course reminded transit employees that terrorists attack subway and rail systems because they are accessible and anyone can find a map of them. The most recent attacks were in Mumbai last year, London in 2005 and Madrid in 2004.

But transit employees can prevent attacks by keeping their eyes open and trusting their experience, Turner said. After all, they have thwarted attacks before, including a planned pipe bomb attack on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue terminal in 1997, he said.

“It’s just an increased awareness of their surroundings,” he said.

Transit union president Roger Toussaint said it’s about time.

“For too long, we have stood by ourselves in demanding that transit workers are trained to react and respond to the dangers they face on the job every day,” he said in a statement.

“This initiative gives our members some of the tools they need to face the new reality of our transit system after 9/11.”

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