Bombings Set Off Red Line Worries
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Bombings Set Off Red Line Worries
Attacks on London's underground and recent intrusions in L.A.'s subway system have officials watching the tunnels more closely.
By Jessica Gresko and Jeffrey L. Rabin
Times Staff Writers
July 23, 2005
At the edge of the Hollywood and Highland station platform on the Red Line, gates to catwalks paralleling the system's tunnels carry cautionary signs: "Warning Keep Out."
But ever since the Red Line opened more than a decade ago, some have ignored the warning.
Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputy Scott Diamond remembers a woman with Alzheimer's who walked into the tunnel after her husband boarded the subway and she was left behind. A man allegedly on drugs played cat and mouse with deputies, walking from one station to another in the tunnel. Diamond has also heard from other deputies of transients going into the tunnels.
Following the London terrorist bombings and two incidents on the Red Line, the Sheriff's Department, which provides security for the regional transportation system, has stepped up patrols along the platforms to prevent people from venturing into the tunnels.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is also installing alarms on the gates to tunnel catwalks, officials said.
"We don't want to catch [intruders] in the tunnel. We want to catch them before they get to the tunnel," said John Catoe, deputy chief executive of the MTA.
The transit agency is particularly concerned about subway tunnels because a bomb explosion could cripple the line, and suspicious packages left inside a tunnel could go unnoticed longer than those left at a station, Catoe said.
Improving security in the subway was a major topic of discussion at Friday's MTA board meeting. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he was concerned because the camera system in the Los Angeles subway is not as sophisticated as London's video surveillance, which has helped officials investigate the bombings.
Just back from London, Capt. Dan Finkelstein, head of the Sheriff's Department's transit security operation, told the MTA's Executive Management Committee that cameras in the London subways have the ability to zoom in on a suspicious package or individual. By contrast, the cameras on the Red Line cannot pan, tilt or zoom.
"Los Angeles has got some work to do to convince the federal government that we need resources to have the best state-of-the-art equipment possible," Villaraigosa said in an interview after the meeting.
The Red Line, about 17 miles long, is the most widely traveled of the MTA's four light-rail and subway lines, logging about 117,000 weekday boardings. Still, it has far fewer commuters than rail lines on the East Coast.
Despite increased security measures, passengers traveling the Red Line on Friday said that they believed if someone really wanted to get into a tunnel, little could deter them.
Malik Faroah, 46, who has ridden the Red Line for 11 years, said that as a kid in New York he played in the subway with friends. Faroah said he did not believe it would be difficult to get into the subway tunnel by jumping onto the track and going around gates.
"People are going to go where they need to go," Faroah said. In New York, he said, the homeless could be found sleeping in abandoned tunnels or stations.
However, "those spaces that they show in movies with big caverns and empty tunnels that people can dwell in â€â€
