But not Street Cars, right?

Too slow.

I'm more worried about our transit authority's ability to monitor the garden variety wanna-be-thugs(with backpacks) that lurk around Max stations in our own backyard. Statistically, they are much more of a threat than the rogue Middle Eastern terrorist out in these parts.

The whole backpack thing is scary. Fire some bureaucrats and use the dough bring on the bomb-sniffing dogs.

Unfortunately, mass transit is an almost irresistible target for terror. But a Lexington Ave. subway at rush hour has much greater potential for impact than the Portland Streetcar. It's lucky it hasn't happened yet. Let's hope that it doesn't and that the folks who are trying to protect us are smart enough and resourceful enough to succeed in their work.

Amen.

I have my doubts about the genuine nature of all these scare tactics.

Your odds of getting killed in a terrorist attack are almost nil compared with the odds of your getting killed on America's highways.

Funny how some things panic us and other things we just ignore.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

The risks may not be all that great in Portland or Poughkeepsie but as someone who can look out of the window and see the Washington Monument, the Pentagon and Lincoln Memorial (and the US Capitol from the other side of the building) I can assure you there are places where the risks are real. Consider a train or a bus where one out of every three or four people are wearing a uniform of a branch of the US military. The Pentagon reservation is the largest public transportation hub in the national capital region.

Most of the risks are fairly limited (like the whacko supremicist who took out the guard at the Holocaust Museum in June); some are incredibly profound.