Will turnstiles stop terrorists on Metro rail?

I posted yesterday that Metro was making a big to-do over an announcement today that it was receiving a grant today from the Governor's Office of Homeland Security. No one would tell me the amount Monday, because they didn't want to steal the thunder from the press conference this morning with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Times City Hall reporter Phil Willon attended. The grant is for $16 million, which includes money that will be used to install a gating system at the Metro Red and Purple subway lines as well as some light rail stations, officials said.

All of this, as journalists like to say, raises the question of how fare-beating motivated turnstiles have suddenly turned into terrorist traps (those are subway gates in New York in the above photo). That's the question that pestered me and Willon attacks in this dispatch:   

Both Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Homeland Security Advisor Matthew Bettenhausen said the turnstiles will enhance security at the rail lines, as well as stop fare jumpers, although a transportation security expert said the gates by themselves will have only a nominal effect on stopping potential terrorist attacks.

The grant comes from state money set aside for transit security, funded by the Proposition 1B bonding measure California voters approved in 2006 to improve and protect the state’s highways and other critical infrastructure.

The money will be used to help pay for a 10-year, $46-million project to install the barrier gates at the subway and selected light rail stations that the Metro board approved in February.

At the time, the project was touted as a way to collect an estimated $3 million to $6 million from people who evade paying fares. Currently, both the subway and light rail systems rely on the honor system, with sheriff’s deputies infrequently checking passengers tickets – and issuing citations to those without one.

On Tuesday, however, the gates and turnstiles – which are commonplace at every major subway system across the country -- were described as way increase “security and safety.’’

“It’s one more tool to provide the security that the people of Los Angeles deserve,’’ said Villaraigosa, who also serves at the chairman of the Metro board.

Both the mayor and Metro CEO Roger Snoble said the turnstiles also will enhance security by freeing up deputies from checking tickets, saying instead they will be able to concentrate on looking for suspicious passengers, packages or other security threats. In the future, the turnstiles could also be outfitted with devices that could detect explosives or other lethal threats, such as sarin gas.

However, national security expert Brian Jackson said that gates failed to prevent the 2005 bombings in London’s subway system that killed 52 commuters, as well as a sarin nerve gas attack inside the Tokyo subway in 1995, killing 12 people and sickening thousands of others.

“They are very hard systems to protect, because they are so accessible and easy to get to,’’ said Jackson, associate director of the Rand Corporation’s Homeland Security Research Program in Arlington, Virginia.

He also said the prospect of adding devices to instantaneously detect passengers carrying explosives and chemical or biological attacks are still in the research stage, as well as extremely expensive.

One major benefit of adding turnstiles, he said, is that they create a barrier between the interior of the station and the outside, allowing security officials to patrol the stations more effectively. The gates also funnel passengers through one point, which can be monitored more closely, he said.

--Steve Hymon and Phil Willon

photo: AFP/Getty Images, Emmanuel Dunand

Comments

[Tony Fernandez]

C S, I've heard that Metrolink will change their tickets, which is unfortunate because they just changed their tickets not too long ago.

[M]

I find this line in particular a little funny "... the turnstiles also will enhance security by freeing up deputies from checking tickets, saying instead they will be able to concentrate on looking for suspicious passengers, packages or other security threats."

I have been riding the Red Line and Gold Line daily during the week for the past 3 years. I think my ticket has been checked a total of about 5 times on the Red Line. So now the officers that checked my ticket an average of 2 times a year will be free to look at suspicious passengers and packages? That doesn't seem like that is saving them much in the grand scheme of things. Checking tickets on the Gold Line is another story. There it can easily happen every week or even every day in a week or even multiple times in a day, but there won't be turnstiles there.

I honestly see a barrier between the station and the outside world to be a bad thing. So when emergencies happen, like terrorist attacks and fires we'll be trapped in the subway stations instead of being able to get out. When floods of people transfer, they will all have to funnel through a single point that if someone trips or gets stuck in, it blocks everyone else. As it is, it can be very difficult to hit your TAP card on the little stations because the way the stations are set up for people to ideally travel through them is not how people actually move through the stations.

[Dana Gabbard]

CS, supposedly Metrolink and Metro are trying to work that out. I think some of us still squint at that aspect of the gating, among others.

So. Calif. Transit Advocates have prepared a page with links on the whole gating situation:

http://www.socata.net/gm/archives/00000070.shtml

[Anonymous]

A large part of the economic case for gating Metro Rail rests on the cost savings from reducing the number of sheriff's deputies and civilian personnel inspecting fares under the current proof-of-payment system -- and thereby on-duty at unpredictable times and places throughout the Metro system -- and replacing them with machinery, possibly attended by a lone station agent in a token booth. I'm really not sure how this increases security; a terrorist or saboteur can buy a ticket and pass through a gate as easily as you or I.

Metro has also suggested that gates will increase safety by preventing excessive numbers of patrons from entering a station at once, but no evidence has been offered that such conditions have occurred or are likely in the future, or that preventing this is worth installing gates and barriers that may increase the time required to evacuate a station in a genuine emergency.

I'm also concerned that installing gates at the entrances to light rail stations will cause fare evaders to cross the tracks elsewhere to reach the platforms, which may result over the long term in more trespasser strikes (and the claims expense and service delays they cause).

It is also worth paying attention to the concerns that Metrolink has about how to preserve their existing fare model, which includes a transfer to Metro Rail in the price of a Metrolink train ticket. The current Metrolink tickets don't work in any gate and don't need to; how this will change for a gated Metro--and what this will cost--remains to be seen.

It's hard to see that anyone benefits from the fare gating initiative except the vendors leasing the equipment and the consulting firms hired to make it all work.

[C S]

Anybody has any idea how will the turnstiles accommodate the metrolink tickets?

[Damien Newton]

Steve! You're stealing my headlines!

http://la.streetsblog.org/2008/02/28/turnstiles-needed-to-protect-us-from-terrorists/

:)

[mark harvis]

Turnstiles as terrorist preventers? Come on now. Next you know, the MTA and Mayor Tony will be telling us the threat level in the Pershing Square station is at Level Orange or some other such nonsense.

I think turnstiles are a good idea to gently dissuade freeloaders from riding without paying. But marketing them as terrorist preventers. . . .naw. That's a load of nonsense and it's not even a good lie it's so very transparent.

Hey, MTA and Mayor Tony, give us transit riders some consideration that we might have a brain or two to see through your false claims.