How safe are U.S. subways?

End of the World by David E. Kaplan that explored the Aum Supreme Truth cult behind Tokyo’s 1995 sarin attack.

The Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — funded by DHS — completed and published a study back in 2007 showing how airborne chemicals could quickly spread in New York’s subway system and urged that detection and first responder plans be devised from that data.

Even in the U.S. capitalofficials are only now beginning to ramp up anti-terrorism capabilities on its Metro subway system. The city’s Metro Transit Police announced in January — five years after the London subway attacks — it had formed a 20-officer anti-terrorism police team to patrol subway tunnels and stations. A DHS grant made creation of the team possible.

Solomon notes that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly said that one problem with rail and subway security is that it is left to states and local authorities, which often have varying resources, capabilities and oversight. Some in Congress are exploring whether to empower the Federal Transit Authority (FTA) to have greater oversight of rail security.

“Officials at several state oversight agencies we spoke with stated that since FTA provided little to no funding for rail transit safety oversight functions, and because of competing priorities for limited state funds, they were limited in the number of staff they could hire and the amount of training they could provide,” the GAO, the auditing arm of Congress, warned in December.

The GAO last year also urged DHS and its Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to do a better job in using risk analysis to identify which transit agencies should get anti-terrorism funding. Since 2006, the department has handed out more than $1 billion in grants to better protect public transit systems against terrorist attacks.

“Although TSA allocated about 90 percent of funding to the highest-risk agencies, lower-risk agency awards were based on other factors in addition to risk,” the GAO warned.

That June 2009 report succinctly identified the continuing risks that subways systems and other means of mass transit face from terrorism. “Certain characteristics of mass transit systems, such as multiple access points and limited barriers to access, make them inherently vulnerable to terrorist attack and therefore difficult to secure,” the GAO reported. “High ridership, expensive infrastructure, economic importance, and location in large metropolitan areas or tourist destinations also make them attractive targets for terrorists because of the potential for mass casualties and economic damage.”