Transit Agencies Do What They Can

Roger Snoble, head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, took the predawn call from one of his staff about the London transit bombing -- and worried.

“The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Is this a worldwide attack?’ ” Snoble said. “You kind of brace yourself for that.”

As with all public transit systems, Los Angeles’ Metro stations and rail and bus lines are porous. Despite $60 million a year spent on security and anti-terrorism efforts, the MTA’s network is as accessible to the terrorist as it is to the hurried commuter.

The best any agency can do is strengthen its weak points and minimize the effects of an attack, say transit security experts.

“Public transit systems worldwide are the largest single venue for terrorist attacks,” said Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. “They are inherently open systems.”

The MTA has hired consultants to study vulnerabilities in its system, which moves 1.4 million people every day. The agency has installed sensors and cameras at obvious targets like Union Station.

It has bought specially designed trash cans that do not turn into shrapnel if a bomb is exploded in or near them, and conducted disaster drills with thousands of participants -- even hiring UCLA acting students to play the parts of injured victims.

For its part, Metrolink, a regionwide commuter rail network, has assessed its vulnerability to terrorism and taken steps to increase security at stations and aboard trains.

Law enforcement officers have been added to the lines, and the number of patrols to check facilities and rail cars has increased, officials said Thursday. Bomb-proof trash cans have been installed at stations, and Metrolink has begun to reduce public access to its tracks with improved fencing and removal of street-level railroad crossings.

At the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, where five local, state and federal agencies share security responsibility, officials have improved such infrastructure as fencing and lighting, added surveillance cameras and upgraded the motion-detection system.

There are also security upgrades that motorists can see: California Highway Patrol officers now sit in marked cars on either end of the bridge as a cautionary reminder.

Once a week, the five agencies -- including Golden Gate Bridge security, CHP officers, the Coast Guard and U.S. park police -- meet weekly to discuss security.

“Every week, we talk about our vulnerabilities,” said Marie Currie, a spokeswoman for the agency that operates the bridge. “You plan the things you know you can patrol, but there are things you may not be able to control.”

Throughout the Bay Area, home to the state’s most extensive public transit system, the London bombings served as a rallying cry for transit officials and politicians who have complained that transit security is underfunded.

Bay Area Rapid Transit District director Lynette Sweet said her agency alone needed $215 million to address weaknesses, far more than the $7 million that Bay Area transit agencies received in federal transportation security grants in the spring and have yet to divvy up. The rail system runs trains throughout the region, including underneath San Francisco Bay.

Though reluctant to address specific vulnerabilities, BART spokesman Linton Johnson said the funds were needed for “everything from adding more explosive-detecting dogs to new security cameras to something as simple as buying locks for a door that never needed to be locked in the past, buying fences and physically reinforcing buildings from bomb blasts.

“There’s no question about it. We’re an open system and we’re vulnerable,” Johnson said. “But there are a lot of things we would be doing if we had the money to harden the system.”

Scarce funds for increased security have also affected MTA service in Los Angeles, officials said. A 2003 proposal to install turnstiles at Red Line stations, a move that would have freed up officers to focus on crime and terrorism, was never implemented.

“We do the best we can with the resources we have,” said L.A. County Sheriff’s Capt. Dan Finkelstein, who heads policing for the MTA and Metrolink.

Except for days like Thursday, when two officers rode every train after the London bombings, there are just about 100 officers patrolling Red, Blue, Green and Gold line trains on any given day, Finkelstein said.

The emergency response system on each train consists of a call box that rings the train’s driver, who must then call a dispatcher before sheriff’s deputies can be sent to help passengers in distress.

On Thursday, officials recommended that riders concerned about a suspicious package or passenger should use their cellphones to call the department’s dispatcher at (888) 950-SAFE.

In Orange County, Sheriff Mike Carona said there would be increased checks at all rail and bus centers and that uniformed and plainclothes deputies would randomly board Metrolink trains. The department will also have bomb-sniffing dogs on random Metrolink trains.

Metrolink officials said the 47 miles of track in Orange County would be patrolled by helicopter.

Throughout the 512-mile system, which has almost 41,000 boardings a day, more Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies will board trains and patrol stations, officials added. Metrolink also deployed bomb-sniffing dogs for random searches and accelerated its inspections of track and rail cars.

In San Francisco, uniformed police were a constant presence Thursday as trains and buses ushered commuters to jobs.

BART, which runs trains from San Francisco to suburbs and other area cities, asked all employees to be on increased alert, and many workers were held over from the night shift into the morning hours to ensure maximum coverage.

Similar measures were put in place at the Riverside Transit Agency, which operates more than 100 buses a day and handles 16,000 boardings across most of Riverside County.

Those measures were testament to a harsh bottom line. Given the difficulty of preventing someone bent on attacking transit from finding a way to do so, transportation agencies throughout the state have concentrated much of their efforts on saving lives: training drivers, security officers and executives on ways to evacuate passengers and provide first aid.

“You grow up [in this business] with it, and try to be as hard a target as you can be,” Snoble said. “You plan for it and train for it, and when it happens, you do the best you can.”

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Times staff writers John M. Glionna, Lee Romney, Jennifer Oldham and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this report.