Subway Security

Three days ago, the MTA started to eliminate station agents at numerous entrances throughout the system. In the buildup to this cost-saving measure, the agency has faced criticism on numerous fronts from those who feel that eliminating the agents will decrease safety underground. While I believe the agents create the illusion of safety and don’t actually make the stations safer, it is hard to dispute the deterrent power of an official-looking station worker.

As the agents head out, the MTA suffered something of a public relations setback. No one really explained how the MTA was going to maintain safety in the subway. Today, the Daily News has word of a plan unveiled tomorrow that should quell some fears. As the MTA rehabilitates stations, it will include platform intercoms every 200 feet. These intercoms will will allow customers to report problems nearly at the source.

This is a great safety measure and one that should have been announced as the agents were being eliminated. Why we are hearing about this only know, I do not know. Pete Donohue has more:

Intercoms linking platforms and token booths are now few and far between – but NYC Transit is including them in all future station rehabilitation projects, a spokesman said. Among the first to see the communications upgrade will be riders at five Brighton line stations in Brooklyn.

Workers will install 61 of the devices, one every 200 feet, the spokesman said. The series of station overhauls began in October and will be completed in December 2011.

“The bottom line is it will be a lot easier for riders in an emergency to reach help, and that’s a good thing,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said. “It doesn’t completely make up for the smaller human presence in stations, but it helps.”

I don’t think Russianoff gets it right. The intercoms won’t act as deterrents as people would, but the technological should make riders safety. The intercoms could connect directly to outside help, and while the initial plans are to connect them to the token booth or the NYC Transit control center, if customers can summon emergency response teams from the platform without having to track down a station agent, straphangers would be far better off than they are now.

The MTA deserves applause for this initiative, and they should earn praise from the board tomorrow when the full plan is unveiled. The rollout may be slow and steady, but the intercoms represent a true measure of subway security.

When I exited from the IND train at 40th and 6th Ave. on Friday afternoon, the sign shown at right greeted me. It was hanging on the former token booth located at the back entrance to this well-traveled station. While the 40th St. entrance is used mainly by people on the way to work, it is at the southwest corner of Bryant Park, and more than a few lost souls traverse its turnstiles.

Yesterday, though, as part of the MTA’s cost-cutting measures, the Station Customer Assistant assigned to this booth is no longer there. Straphangers can still enter at this southern end of the station with a MetroCard, and the MetroCard Vending Machines will still dispense cards (or eat your money). Those in need of help, however, will have to venture up to 42nd St. and 6th for a 24-hour station agent.

Throughout the city, I saw signs such as that one this weekend. At the 1st Ave. entrance to the F/V stop at 2nd Ave., a sign warned customers at 1 a.m. on Sunday morning about the lack of a station agent. Not every station enjoyed community support and outrage over these cuts as the F/G stop at Carroll St. (For a full list of the 86 station booths now without an agent, check out Comptroller Thompson’s search tool.)

With these cuts came a new round of articles from people on the street proclaiming the end of subway safety as we know it. Jeff Wilkins from the Daily News tracked down a few scared people. “I’m concerned for my safety,” Lunie Menard, a daily user of the Newkirk Ave. station, said. “If I’m down there by myself and someone’s working, at least I know there’s two of us. There’s safety in numbers. We need more people down there, not less.”

Bryan Walker expressed similar concerns at the A/C Utica Ave. stop in Bed-Stuy. “So I’ll have to phone someone at the other end of the station to let them know I’m being mugged,” he said. “That makes no sense.”

Walker’s and Menard’s statements hit upon the psychological aspects of the station agents. Generally, these agents are helpful when they can assist customers with MetroCard problems, stroller and wheelchair issues or directions. When crime comes into play, the agents aren’t required to assist and have made headlines in the past for doing nothing when straphangers are in trouble.

As news of the cuts has built over the last year, I’ve explored the ways in which the mere presence of the agents could act as a deterrent. For its part, the MTA has these safety concerns weren’t part of their financial equation. “Safety isn’t even a consideration,” Charles Seaton, and NYC Transit spokesperson, said. “Crime is down at stations across the city. The NYPD is doing a good job of patrolling them.”

For better or worse, we’ll find out who’s right. Crime might be down because the MTA placed eyes and ears in the stations. While these agents weren’t able to stop a crime in progress, the fact that they were there could have deterred numerous perps. With the MTA’s station agent cuts underway, if crime increases, we’ll know why.

While we’ve been busy covering the wall-to-wall news concerning the delayed Second Ave. Subway, another important transit story has cropped up as well. As The Times detailed today, a Long Island native who joined Al Qaeada last year supplied sensitive transit information to the terrorist network.

He also told Brooklyn federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents about discussions he had with operational planners from Al Qaeda about a plot to blow up a Long Island Rail Road train inside Pennsylvania Station, according to several law enforcement officials.

The information prompted a flurry of security activity over the Thanksgiving holiday as the authorities scrambled to take extra precautions, though it did not appear the planned attack had yet been put into motion.

The slight, dark-haired and pale-skinned Mr. Vinas, who the officials said began formally cooperating with federal authorities about two months later, also admitted assisting Al Qaeda by providing ?expert advice and assistance? that was ?derived from specialized knowledge of the New York transit system and the Long Island Rail Road,? according to the court papers.

Two officials said that Mr. Vinas, who lived in Patchogue until he went to Pakistan, learned about the Long Island Rail Road as a regular rider and shared that information with Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, who had planned to use it in an attack. But neither official would provide specifics, and it appeared that Mr. Vinas?s knowledge of details of the planned attack may have been limited. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

In the end, thankfully, nothing happened during the Thanksgiving period, and the FBI says everything is under control. This revelation though returns the spotlight to the oft-ignored issue of the security of our transit infrastructure.

For their part, the MTA, part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, acknowledged being in ” in constant communication with local and federal authorities as the investigation involving Bryant Neal Vinas developed,” according to a statement released earlier this week. “There was never an imminent threat to the system,” said the agency. “The security of our entire transportation network and the safety of our customers continue to be the MTA’s top priorities.”

No one is sure how Vinas, never an employee of the MTA or its vendors, received his information, and The Times and other news outlets did not reveal the nature or extent of the information revealed. The Daily News claims that Vinas provided information on New York City Transit as well but knew nothing more than any other commuter.

While we bemoan a lack of closed-circuit cameras and the porous nature of the subway system, the threat out there can be very real, and law information officials are working to guard our infrastructure. That, by itself, is far more comforting than random bag searches, constant “important messages from the NYPD” and the ever-ubiquitous “If you see something, say something” campaign.

A few months ago, the spat between Lockheed Martin and the MTA over the state of various MTA security project bubbled over. During the last week of April, Lockheed sued the MTA to get out of its contract. The defense contractor alleged that the MTA had basically interfered with Lockheed’s ability to fulfill the terms of its contracts.

Yesterday, the MTA fought back. During an appearance before the City Council’s transportation committee, MTA lawyers talked about the countersuit they have filed against Lockheed. As Council member and Transportation committee head John Liu warned of an impending legal fight, Ronnie Hakim, an attorney at the MTA, explained the authority’s thinking. Tom Namako of The Post had more:

In April, Lockheed said that the MTA refused to give them access to critical subway tunnels that would allow them to install surveillance equipment. The MTA claims that Lockheed failed to make a system that actually worked. A trial date could be set for early 2010.

The counterclaim blasts Lockheed on several fronts, saying that the firm’s system failed repeatedly during tests at a center located at Mitchell Field on Long Island, that Lockheed falsely claimed that the work was progressing, that an MTA inspector was injured by poorly-maintined scaffolding , and that Lockheed’s subcontractors botched installation of arial wires across a bridge.

The agency also defaulted the firm and trash-talked Lockheed’s track record as a defense contractor for the federal government. “Lockheed has had problems in different kinds of programs. You may have read about problems they had with some of their defense contracts,” Hakim said.

In addition to the suit against Lockheed, the MTA is prepared to sue its insurance agency as well. The agency would prefer to convince the insurance agency that Lockheed is responsible for the failure to fulfill the terms of the contract. If the MTA cannot do so, to court they will all go.

As the legal dust settles, this story has been one giant mess. By now, nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the MTA was supposed to enjoy a state-of-the-art security system with cameras galore. Instead, just 80 percent of the planned cameras are installed, and most aren’t doing much. Another 37.5 percent of all projects are behind schedule, many by a year.

As John Liu said, “the MTA has flushed $250 million down the drain and has little to show for it.” With these legal challenges, the MTA will try to get some of that money back. However, the reality of an insecure subway system remains. We can debate the need for more closed-circuit cameras and their effectiveness until the cows come home. For now, though, the only security measure fully realized is one that detects when unauthorized personnel are in restricted access areas. For $250 million and countless years and headaches, I would expect a bit more.

Over the last few years, I’ve written extensively about MTA security issues. It’s been nearly eight years since the 9/11 attacks, and the agency’s security efforts have been stymied, as State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli noted in November, by nearly every problem on the books. From a lack of technological compatibility to bureaucratic inefficiencies, the MTA has tried to institute some sort of closed circuit surveillance system in the subways with little success.

Yesterday, this issue came to a head as defense contractor Lockheed Martin sued the MTA in an effort to get out of its contract. Lockheed says that the MTA is responsible for the delays in the project and has been less that cooperative in helping out with the job.

The Post’s Bruce Golding, Tom Namako and Larry Celona first reported on the lawsuit yesterday. They write:

Lockheed is claiming losses of $3 million a month while “key personnel” remain in place on the stalled project, and says it will file a separate suit to recover damages.

The company, which was supposed to be done with the job last August, blames the MTA for refusing to let it work inside a series of “under river tunnels,” including four beneath the East River linking Manhattan and Queens.

Lockheed’s Manhattan federal court filing says the contract guaranteed it access to one of the four East River tunnels for at least 55 hours each weekend. “Currently, there is no schedule in place,” the suit says.

Lockheed also accuses the MTA of failing to clear out existing communication rooms for necessary upgrades. The rooms are cluttered with other contractors’ equipment, while several “have water infiltration, the presence of which makes it unsafe to perform work due to the risk of electrocution,” and many “have inadequate electricity which is essential to perform the work.”

Perhaps worst of all, “none of the communication rooms have necessary network access, the absence of which makes it impossible for Lockheed Martin to install communication systems that will actually transmit information,” according to the suit.

Those are pretty damning allegations from one of the nation’s leading contractors, and the timing could not be worse for an MTA already combating public image problems. The agency has already paid out $250 million on a contract originally valued at $212 million in 2005, and there is no end in sight to the project.

From a security perspective, this is, needless to say, alarming. The open nature of the city’s transit infrastructure make it a very vulnerable target to an attack, and this project was supposed to help secure it. Meanwhile, from an institutional perspective, this filing simply gives more ammo to MTA detractors who view it as a barely functioning bureaucratic mess. That the MTA is just bleeding money everywhere these days makes it all the more worse.

As millions of New Yorkers prepared for their Thanksgiving day celebrations, the FBI and the NYPD issued a guarded terror warning for the New York City transit network. While the threat sounds remote, city officials are ramping up patrols in the subway system are and are urging passengers to remain alert.

The Times had more:

Federal authorities in Washington informed law enforcement officials in New York this week of a possible Al Qaeda plot to bomb transportation systems in and around New York City. But officials sought to play down the significance of the threat on Wednesday, in marked contrast to previous cases in which they issued public warnings of possible terrorist attacks in the region.

In this case, an intelligence bulletin sent on Tuesday to city officials said that the F.B.I. had received “uncorroborated but plausible information” that, in late September, Al Qaeda terrorists may have discussed attacks on transit systems in the metropolitan area, including the city’s subway system, a federal official said on Wednesday.

The information was included in a routine document given each month to local law enforcement officials “for their information, so they can look at it and take whatever measures they deem appropriate,” another official said.

The terrorists, according to the document, reportedly contemplated deploying suicide bombers or using explosives set off by remote control. In response to the bulletin, federal and local law enforcement agencies in and around New York City increased patrols on Wednesday.

In response to this news, the MTA released a statement on Wednesday afternoon:

The MTA is aware of an unsubstantiated report of terrorist threats against transit properties during the holiday season. We are already on high alert and are always on a heightened state of readiness during this season. We have been working closely with local, state and federal law enforcement to increase police presence throughout our transportation system. As always, we ask that our customers remain alert and report any suspicious activity or packages, but there is no reason to be alarmed.

With the unrelated bombing in Mumbai fresh on everyone’s mind, this news will be sobering. Travel safely on Thanksgiving and be vigilant.

Just a service note: Trains are operating on Sunday schedules today. There will be a whole slate of service changes for the weekend that I will post on Friday.