July 8, 2005
Second class
Is the U.S. government spending enough on security measures for America’s public transit systems? According to the American Public Transportation Association, Americans ride the country’s public transit systems 32 million times a day—16 times more often than they travel on domestic airlines. Given that the U.S. aviation industry has received $18.1 billion in security spending since 9/11, the numbers for public transit must also be pretty vast, right? Wrong:
Last year APTA conducted a security survey among its U.S. transit agencies and identified $6 billion in increased transit security need. [… But] since 9/11, the U.S. public transportation industry [has] received only $250 million in federal security funding. In FY 2005, Congress provided $150 million for transit and rail security grants. Last month, the Senate Committee on Appropriations proposed cutting transit and rail security grants to $100 million when it approved the FY 2006 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. Full Senate action is scheduled for next week. [APTA’s William] Millar noted that last year the Senate unanimously passed a funding authorization measure that would have provided significant investment in transit security over three years. In the House, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported out a similar bill.
Neither measure was enacted into law.
Posted by Stephen at 1:15 AM in Terrorism | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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