WASHINGTON — The Associated Press reports that buses, subways and commuter trains make attractive terrorist targets, but they are expensive and difficult to secure, congressional investigators said Wednesday.
“Securing the nation’s transit system is not a short-term or easy task,” said Peter Guerrero, director of physical infrastructure issues for the General Accounting Office.
He appeared before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs’ subcommittee on housing and transportation, which has jurisdiction over the mass transit portions of a major transportation funding law that expires next year. The law provided about $36 billion for mass transit from 1998-2003.
The GAO said preliminary findings indicate the cost of making needed security improvements to mass transit systems “could easily amount to billions of dollars.” The report is expected to be finished in January.
In just eight of 10 major urban transit systems, estimated costs of improvements, such as upgraded communications systems, additional fencing, surveillance equipment or mobile command centers, are $711 million, investigators said.
In 2000, mass transit systems provided over 9 billion passenger rides and employed about 350,000 people. They include local and regional buses, trolleys, commuter rail, van pools, ferry boats and light rail.
U.S. mass transit has largely been spared from terrorist attacks, but worldwide systems, including Israeli buses, the Bologna train station and Paris metro, have been hit.
The report said it is impractical to closely screen passengers or install metal detectors because transit systems must remain open — with many access points and few barriers — in order to quickly move many people.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, some security improvements in mass transit systems have been made.
Local systems in some cases have completed vulnerability studies, accelerated planned improvements such as installing alarms on access points to subway ventilation systems, and increased numbers of police or security patrols, the GAO found.
Also, the Federal Transit Administration sent teams to 36 agencies to conduct security assessments, offered agencies free emergency training and awarded $3.4 million in grants for emergency drills, it said.
The Transportation Security Administration is to assume responsibility for mass transit security, but so far the agency has concentrated on aviation.