by Joyce Pellino Crane
(Here’s some information I picked up while riding Boston’s subway this week)
Transit police are preparing to beef up subway coverage in September when school starts, said a transportation official, contradicting speculation among patrolling officers that they will soon be reassigned to above-ground areas.
Joseph O’Connor, deputy chief of patrol operations for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said there is no truth to rumors that the core subway system will no longer be patrolled.
“The speculation that we’re going to reduce officers from the subway is not accurate,” he said. “We know that people feel safe when they see an officer in the transit system…”
Terrorist attacks inside London’s subway in 2005 and Tokyo’s in 1995, and bombings at three of Madrid’s commuter train stations in 2004, have heightened awareness of the vulnerability of public transportation systems. Boston’s transit police are trained to watch for threatening situations and explosives, said O’Connor.
The staffing rumors were conveyed by patrolling officers aboard the Green Line this week, who said the MBTA needed to fill coverage gaps in other areas due to retirements and vacations. But O’Connor said the number of retirements this year were negligible, and by August the system will add 17 graduating officers to its current staff of 256.
Transit Police cover public buses equipped with video cameras for real-time monitoring, commuter rails, and ferries, as well as Boston’s subway system. The fiscal 2009 budget for its operations, which began July 1, is $20 million.
As the price of gas hovers around $4, transportation officials are anticipating increased ridership, he added.
“It’s our goal to keep the system safe especially where we have increased ridership with the price of fuel going up,” O’Connor said.
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