MBTA ‘Vulnerable’ To Attack

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is “critically vulnerable” to a terrorist attack, and the state’s defense efforts are both underfunded and understaffed, according to a report released last month by a joint committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.

The report, commissioned in the wake of the Madrid and London bus and train bombings of 2004 and 2005, also cites lack of communication between emergency response divisions, including the police and fire departments, as a chief reason for the transportation system’s vulnerability.

The committee, which was chaired by State Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios ‘90 (D-Cambridge), recommended that significant increases in funding for training, surveillance, and inter-operational communication. It also recommends allocating $5.4 million to hire 100 new officers for the MBTA Transit Police.

Though Lt. Sal Venturelli, the transit police commander of Porter and Davis Square stations, disagreed that the police forces are understaffed, he added that “having said that, would the legislature wish to appropriate the funds, then sure, I feel like we could stand to increase staffing.”

The committee reported that the MBTA police force has actually shrunk since 9/11, and that its forces are “far smaller” than those in London in proportion to the city’s population. This decrease in size has happened despite the fact that MBTA expenditures on police wages have increased from $13.2 to $21 million since 2001.

Venturelli agreed with the report that one of the subway system’s greatest weaknesses is inoperability between agencies.

“Departments can’t talk to each other,” he said. “If there’s an emergency and we go down [into a station] and, say, the Cambridge Fire Department goes down there—they can’t talk to us.”

The report placed particular emphasis on the Porter and Davis square stations, which are the furthest underground in the entire MBTA system. It also noted that no live exercise or rescue drills have ever been performed there, and that it might take a considerable amount of time for emergency responders to reach a hit area.

But Venturelli said that Porter station’s depth is not necessarily a liability because if there were a radiological attack at ground level, the station could act as a natural fallout shelter.

He said that the MBTA—which services 1.1 million riders each day, according to its website—has been conducting anti-terror training since 1998.

“We’re definitely not a ‘9/12’ police department,” he said.

But some officials are not as confident as Venturelli.

“The subway systems remain extremely vulnerable to attacks. The Massachusetts transit system...does not seem to receive the attention that it deserves,” State Rep. Ted Speliotis (D-Danvers) wrote in a letter to the joint committee this month.