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| N.J. Tests Bomb-Screening Jersey City Train Riders |
| 2006-02-08 |
| EFL Airport-Style Bomb-Screening of Passengers Starts Yesterday at New Jersey Commuter Train Station Commuters heading to work in Manhattan walked through metal detectors Tuesday at a busy train station and fed their bags into X-ray machines at the start of a test of an airport-style security screening program. The $1 million test program was being run on PATH trains, which take passengers between New Jersey and New York City using tunnels under the Hudson River. It is a response to the train bombings in Madrid and London. The test at the Exchange Place station was designed to see how well the technology works for large numbers of daily rail travelers. The equipment was desensitized so keys, loose change and cell phones would not set off alarms. The scanners are intended to detect large quantities of metal, as in the explosives vests used by suicide bombers in the Middle East, said Doug Bauer, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In an effort to keep passengers moving quickly through the system, commuters will not be required to take off their shoes or empty their pockets. The screening process should take about one minute, officials said. On Tuesday, many commuters made it through in about 30 seconds. About 15,000 passengers a day pass through the Exchange Place station. A second phase of the program at a yet-to-be-named rail station will test bomb-detection technology such as infrared cameras, said Larry Orluskie, a Homeland Security spokesman. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 The machines are there, and there are about eight staff plus about ten cops milling around, but I haven't actually seen them put anyone through a scan, so I don't think they're running it all the time. |
| Posted by: WhitecollarRedneck 2006-02-08 12:08 |