Dispatch #6: Homeland Security & the MBTA

by Jonathan Riley

Signs warn T riders (left) and employees (right) that they’re on camera. Center: The inconspicuous entrance to “Disneyland for first responders.”

by Jonathan Riley

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will get only $3.25 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security this year –less than half their take in 2012, and less than a quarter of the $15 million they requested.

But that’s not to say they haven’t had their share of federal money. It’s likely, actually, that the scaled back DHS funding results from the MBTA demonstrating in recent years that they’ve been given more than they know what to do with.

MBTA is increasingly unwilling to disclose its DHS dealings, but they’ve likely received over $100 million in federal funds. While many details are murky, some of the money is accounted for. $10 million was spent, for example, on the MBTA Emergency Training Center, which finally opened for business this summer.

Formerly an abandoned South Boston T station, it’s now been outfitted with smoke machines, stationary train cars, and speakers playing a soundtrack of screams, gunshots, and explosions. Supervisors can watch from behind one-way mirrors, taking notes on elaborate counterterrorism drills.

It’s one of a kind. Believe it or not, no other American city –not even Las Vegas– has shelled out taxpayer cash to build a “Disneyland for first responders” beneath the surface of the earth.

But that’s not all. A big part of the mystique surrounding the MBTA’s blossoming black budget in recent years has been their increasing reticence regarding the number of surveillance cameras they’re installing.

As of 2007, there were more than 400 cameras in T stations, with almost 200 more planned. So there were almost certainly more than 600 already installed when they announced plans last year to “add thousands of security cameras across the system, doubling the current number.”

This includes cameras not only in stations but also on buses and trains, and at bus garages and vehicle maintenance stations. These additional unspecified “thousands” will be paid for with $6.5 million in 2012 DHS grants. At least 400 will be installed in stations along the Red Line before the year is out.

T officials may be reluctant to offer specifics, but it’s obvious that there are now many, many cameras in the subways. There are more than a hundred at Park St. alone, for instance.

So maybe it makes sense that the feds are giving four times more to California’s Bay Area Rapid Transit, and almost seven times more to New York’s subway system, than they’re giving to the MBTA, even in the same year that Boston was hit by a terrorist attack.

The T already has so many cameras, and plans for more using stockpiled funds, that they’ll soon have every inch of the system under total surveillance, and nothing to spend money on.

Of course, the train system itself could probably use an upgrade, with its rusty rails and rats running amok. All those screeching sounds and flying sparks don’t seem particularly safe. But then again, there are different definitions of security, and the DHS isn’t necessarily concerned with all of them.