Preparedness Homeland Security 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Preparedness Homeland Security 2 - Essay Example The New York subway system is governed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). It has 468 stations in its network. It has over 840 miles of track that service approximately 5.1 million passengers per week. In 2007, The New York subway system was ranked number 4 amongst the worlds transit system with a massive 1.563 billion riders per year. In 2009 subways cars were reported to travel 344.5 million miles per week with 8,279 miles per day being covered by 6,380 cars (Subways, p. 1). The subway system is massive and very vulnerable. A transportation system of this size is evidently significant to the operation of New York City on a day to day basis. This is an unfortunate acknowledgement that is apparent in terrorist attacks. Al-Qaeda associates openly plead guilty to plotting severe attacks on the Metropolitan subway system in 2009. The MTA: The MTA has had no reason in the past to afford special conditions on behalf of terrorism. The subway stations have had no need to sanction high end security to avoid bomb attacks. This ultimately makes an attack by suicide bombers an element of surprise. A surprise attack has the quality of being able to do massive amounts of damage with little resources. Being located underground is not a positive outlook when dealing with bomb threats. Bombs have the capacity to cause a massive collapse of the railway structures. Dependant on the type of explosive being used and where these explosives are located in the MTA system, there can be enough collateral damage to corrupt the entire underground network. The major issue that is presented with any public transportation is accessibility. Any local person can use the facilities at any given time. In the case of the New York underground railway terrorists are afforded a twenty-four hour gap to engage in any attack. They have access from any publicly available entrance during the process of each attack. They also have locations to choose from. This