News Features

TransLink wants to stop terrorists dead in their tracks.

The South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority is calling for proposals to deter terrorist attacks against the SkyTrain and West Coast Express and ensure that these facilities continue to operate in case they’re hit.

The period for submissions ends on July 28. “TransLink and its operating companies must be fully prepared for potential acts of terrorism that could jeopardize its long-term mission and have steps in place to manage a crisis and help to ensure its continued viability,” according to the scope of work defined by TransLink and posted on its Web site.

The transportation authority likewise provided that the “Business Continuity Plan” it seeks should include, among other things, “risk assessment” and “threat analysis”.

The Georgia Straight asked TransLink spokesperson Ken Hardie if Metro Vancouver’s transit system faces any clear and present danger.

“That’s not the sort of thing that we would comment on,” Hardie said by phone. “As always with these things, you don’t want the bad guys to know what you know and you don’t want them to know what you don’t know.”

Still, Hardie noted that through the transit police, the transportation authority gets intelligence information from regional, national, and international sources. “We are not indicated specifically under any kind of threat or peril at this point,” he said.

Asked if the 2010 Olympics were a factor in TransLink’s decision to harden its facilities, Hardie said: “We need to do this anyway. The Olympics is a consideration, but it’s not the primary one by far.”

TransLink’s procurement document doesn’t mention the deadly bombings that hit the public-transit systems of Spain and Great Britain a few years ago.

On March 11, 2004, bombs went off in crowded commuter trains in Madrid during the morning rush, killing more than 190 people. More than a year later, on July 7, 2005, suicide bombers detonated explosives on three London underground trains and a bus, killing 52 commuters.

Olympics critic Chris Shaw warned in his 2008 book, Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games (New Society Publishers), that Vancouver could be a target for terrorist attacks.

“Gone are the days when Canada had no enemies,” Shaw, who is also a reservist in the Canadian Forces, wrote. “The war in Afghanistan has seen to that, and if anyone wanted to make a political point, there would be no better place to do it than on prime-time television before the eyes of the world at the 2010 Games.”

Security expert Ron Foyle headed the transit police after retiring from the Vancouver Police Department in 1989. His security credentials include having been in charge of policing during Expo 86.

“I would think that it’s very timely in that we’re coming up to the Olympics,” Foyle told the Straight about TransLink’s call for an antiterrorist plan. “We’re going to have a lot of people from all over the place.”

Foyle, who now manages his own security-consulting company, noted that TransLink’s facilities are vulnerable.

“Here we have very little control and manpower on the various stations,” Foyle said. “It wouldn’t take much for somebody to plant a case or leave something that they could detonate remotely. I don’t want to give anybody any ideas, but you know it would be quite easy.”

The threat of terrorism isn’t what NDP Vancouver-Kingsway MLA Adrian Dix had in mind when he started gathering signatures on a petition to increase security measures in and around the SkyTrain system.

There had been a number of physical and sexual assaults, mostly against women, in SkyTrain stations within his constituency. Dix and Mike Farnworth, the NDP MLA for Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, have drawn up a 10-point plan that includes increasing the number of SkyTrain police by 50 percent.

“I believe that we should have live people on the system to provide service at every station,” Dix told the Straight. “It’s a public service. Even beyond the security question, if you have a question or you need something, there’s a live person, not a security camera.”

Dix said he doesn’t have a beef with TransLink’s request for proposals for an antiterrorist plan, saying the transit authority is expected to be prepared for various contingencies. But he noted: “It would be interesting to see who gets the contract and what the results of that are.”