March 25, 2004
Subway Security Update
You ain't nothing unless you try: The MTA is talking to a French (gasp!) company about installing cameras in subway cars and buses while the MTA admits that their efforts to improve lighting and emergency radio communications in subway tunnels have lagged. Ai. The MTA says the security improvements are slowed (communications target moved from mid-2004 to 2005; the tunnels - all 417 miles of them - won't be lit until 2020) because riders will be incovenienced. Plus signals needs to be boosted for different kinds of radios. Gothamist feels for the MTA, we really do, because they are charged with making sure millions of people get to where they're going, on top of maintaining equipment AND adjusting to today's heightened needs, but hearing this just makes us more crazed.
Thales is the French company that the MTA is speaking to about surveillance in the subways and buses. The MTA would want the cameras to deter crime (a bus driver was sexually assaulted last week) as well as combat terror.
Gothamist on the MTA putting suveillance cameras in subway stations last year. And the above photo of passengers walking in subway tunnel from James Wagner.
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The FRENCH?! They should really talk to the British. The London Underground has cameras everywhere. And its not just limited to the subways. Sometimes its like theres a Camera on every block.
now if they can only get people to stop clipping their nails on the 7 train then I'd feel my 70 dollar unlimited was money well spent...
The French have camera everywhere now - metro platforms, street corners, radar cameras on the peripherique (highway that runs around Paris). ..though I still feel train security could be higher.
And although they found another bomb on the tracks recently, the sense of relief that comes with that is mixed with a lot of fear.
Ummm - cameras on the trains? I'm not down with it. If you mean to tell me that a camera will prevent a terrorist attack then I have to laugh. There are only two things it'll do:
1. Help the Richard Clarkes out there figure out WHO did what after the fact.
2. Keep me from taking a hit on an empty train late at night...waiting for the next stop...blowing it out...taking another hit...holding it in until the next stop...you get my drift.