OPINION:
There’s not much of elegance and quiet pleasure left in travel. “Getting there,” in the famous Cunard slogan, is no longer half the fun. But what pleasure there is usually rides on steel rails. Too bad, but Congress in its wisdom may be about to fix that.
Several senators are pressuring the Transportation Safety Administration to assign more of its resources to rail, highway and marine travel, such as Amtrak stations and even stops of the Megabus, convenient connections between big cities, such as between Washington and New York City. Rail passengers now can buy their tickets, stop to pick up a sandwich and a cup of coffee and step right on the train to find a seat. None of the hassle that makes air travel such a pain in an aching back.
A bill introduced last week by Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican, and Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, would require the TSA to make greater use of terrorist watch lists, passenger manifests and sniffer dogs to check out passenger luggage, purses, briefcases and other belongings.
His legislation, says Sen. Thune, “addresses gaps in TSA’s approach to assessing security risks and will help the agency to fulfill its role as a hub of analysis, planning and information.” The senators were inspired by the discovery earlier this month of a pipe bomb in a trash can at the train station in Elizabeth, N.J.
The senators no doubt mean well, and the security on trains is no less important than security aboard airliners, but the risks, it seems to us, are vastly different. There have been no bombed trains, nor even a train ordered by hijackers to go to Havana, or even Secaucus or the Eastern Shore. Where would this intensified security eventually lead? Perhaps to private automobiles, elevators, trucks and even bicycles? Who knows what imaginative evil lurks in the hearts of traveling men.
The Homeland Security Department scolded the TSA for “gaps” in its approach to travel security beyond aviation. The inspector general says the TSA has no formal process for using risk assessment in its budgeting. (Ah, now we’re getting to the point.) The TSA is at work now on developing risk assessments in its budgets. A spokesman for the TSA says the agency is looking forward to working with Sen. Thune’s committee to develop a “comprehensive policy that helps keep the passenger rail system secure.” This will no doubt require more employees to supervise more supervisors, naturally. There goes the last of the fun.
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