Patrol the subways

Re “L.A. rethinks open design of subways,” Feb. 11

This plan to add attendants and install gates at every L.A. subway station seems counterproductive. Wasting huge sums of money on it would do more harm than good. Station attendants will answer questions, goof off and hide as much as possible, just like in New York, Washington and Chicago. The London bombings showed that the presence of attendants did not help one bit in making subway travel safer. What the Metro system needs to do is to have sheriff’s deputies do a much better job of checking passengers for tickets and patrolling the platforms. This way, bad guys will not know when or where they will see one but will know that they will see one soon enough.

BART REED

San Fernando

The writer is executive director of the Transit Coalition.