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T Raises Security Level After London Attacks

Posted on: Friday, 22 July 2005, 18:00 CDT

Jul. 22--The MBTA raised its security level from Code Orange to Code Orange-plus yesterday after a second wave of bombings in London, adding transit police and personnel to station platforms, making more safety announcements, and searching commuter rail and subway trains with sniffer dogs.

Right after the bombings, the T stopped all subway trains at stations momentarily.

New York City police today plan to begin randomly searching subway riders' bags, but Governor Mitt Romney said the practice has not started here. The governor said, however, that individual riders could be searched if necessary.

"I'm occasionally asked whether I feel safe on the T," said Romney, who cut short a visit to Washington to take a one-stop ride on the Red Line yesterday to reassure the public. "The answer is absolutely."

"We don't have any reason to believe that our transit system is under threat," he said. "There's nothing that's come from any of the intelligence across the world that suggests that any of the United States transit systems have any particular threat directed against them. I feel safe riding the T. Are we 100 percent safe in America today? Absolutely not."

Romney and Daniel Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, raised the security level after the two spoke by phone shortly before 9 a.m. Officials said the Orange alert will remain in effect indefinitely; it was raised from a Yellow alert on July 7 after the first London bombings.

State Secretary of Public Safety Edward Flynn said federal security officials have told him that there is no credible threat against the nation's mass transit systems. He added that State Police had increased their presence at Logan International Airport and around Amtrak rail terminals yesterday, while Coast Guard officials stepped up patrols on Boston Harbor and around island ferries.

Grabauskas, who rode the subway system yesterday, said the T operated normally with no security-related delays. "In an unusual time, I can tell you that today has been quite usual," Grabauskas said at an afternoon news conference at Park Street Station.

He reiterated that the transit system's security campaign, "If you see something, say something," a phrase repeated often in recorded station announcements yesterday.

"But better yet, if you bring on board a briefcase or a purse or a bag, please take that with you. It does set quite a bit of activity in motion to try to determine if the suitcase or bag is what it appears to be or something worse," he said.

Earlier in the day, however, Grabauskas noted that the transit system is vulnerable to attack, no matter the security level. "Even before London or Madrid, it wasn't a matter of whether these things would happen but when they would happen," he said.

On Wednesday, the MBTA received a $9.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security to expand its communications network and closed-circuit security stations, which are being placed throughout the core transit system. The grant will also help pay for new intrusion detection and other alarm systems in T tunnels and elsewhere, officials said.

"It isn't safe anywhere in the world anymore. I'm afraid," said rider Ursula Kraft, 72, who has been visiting Boston from Cairo for the past three months.

But Jorray Green, 26, of Back Bay, said he's changed nothing about riding the T. As for a terrorist attack in Boston, he said, "I don't think it's possible."

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Source: The Boston Globe

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