BART applauds effort to increase transit security funding

By Ari Burack, Bay City News Service

July 20, 2006

Bay Area Rapid Transit officials this week praised a bipartisan congressional effort to increase federal funding for transit security.

A statement from BART spokesman Linton Johnson recognized the approval of the Public Transportation Security Assistance Act of 2006 by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as a "bold'' step toward the goal of being able to better protect passengers from a terrorist attack.

The bipartisan committee includes U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek.

The act, if passed by Congress, would allow the Department of Transportation to distribute nearly $3.4 billion in grants over three years to transit systems throughout the country, through a fund separate from the one currently managed by the Department of Homeland Security, Johnson said.

Johnson said Tauscher and some of her colleagues included language in an amendment of the act to ensure that funds would be allocated "based on risk, consequences, vulnerability and threat.''

According to BART board Vice President Lynette Sweet, the California Department of Homeland Security lists BART as one of the state's top 10 terrorism targets.

"For years BART has been pushing hard to get administrators in Washington to allocate transit security based on risk and threat, not politics,'' Sweet said. "We at BART owe a great deal of thanks to Congresswoman Tauscher for amending the bill so that high-risk transit systems like BART will get what they need from these new transit security dollars.''

According to BART, the U.S. government distributes $150 million each year to the nation's 6,000 transit providers for counter-terrorism efforts.

BART officials estimate that BART's counter-terrorism needs alone exceed $250 million. Tauscher said in a statement, "It is not enough to simply spend funds; we must distribute them logically so that large transit systems such as BART in my district and others in major metropolitan areas can offer security to the millions of riders that depend on them daily.''

Copyright © 2006 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.

####