In the wake of last Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, everyone has had to make minor adjustments to daily routines. For regular riders of the T, that means holding on to empty styrofoam coffee cups a little longer each morning — or else discarding them near the token machines, information booths, and platform benches throughout the subway stations.

Trash barrels, in fact, have become a thing of the past for at least 15 T stops in and around downtown Boston — for now, anyway. The MBTA police department began removing the barrels from Park Street, Downtown Crossing, Government Center, State Street, and other heavily trafficked stations almost as soon as the collective shock of what happened in New York and Washington had lifted. As we learned all too well from that day’s gruesome events, ordinary objects (like commercial airplanes and box cutters) can turn into vicious weapons of destruction. And so could round waste receptacles. As MBTA police chief Thomas O’Loughlin explains, " Trash barrels are just one location where someone looking to do harm could hide something. We took them away as a precautionary measure. "

This barrel-less environment is one of several " indefinite changes, " as O’Loughlin says, that have occurred throughout the MBTA in response to last week’s terrorism. Anywhere from 70 to 100 MBTA police officers are patrolling the commuter-rail, subway, and bus terminals these days — up from the normal assignment 40 officers. And special-operations units, which can detect explosives, are monitoring what O’Loughlin calls the " core transit systems. " Last Wednesday, the units trekked through the length of one 75-year-old abandoned tunnel after the MBTA received information of a possible threat, which turned out to be a false alarm. Although O’Loughlin says the MBTA has not received any direct threats, he adds, " There isn’t a police agency in Boston that isn’t operating on heightened alert right now. "

Police officers, of course, aren’t the only ones on edge. In the past seven days, O’Loughlin has seen a steep spike in the number of calls from riders about suspicious activity. Last Monday, for instance, the MBTA police received a dozen reports regarding unattended packages. One local woman called at six a.m. to say she had spotted two trash bags shoved into a corner of the parking garage at Quincy Center. Police descended on the scene — and found nothing but trash. Meanwhile, according to MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo, MBTA personnel have been directed to contact police whenever they notice a backpack, shopping bag, or briefcase left on the train, or abandoned on the platform. Some T drivers have even begun reminding their passengers to take belongings with them.

Says Pesaturo, " Since the horrific bombing, everybody is on high alert. " Even the T.

Issue Date: September 20 - 27, 2001