[Infowarrior] - NY Police Won ¹ t Use $140 Million Radio System

[Richard Forno]

Police Won¹t Use $140 Million Radio System
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/nyregion/25radio.html?ei=5094&en=e10479282
c456281&hp=&ex=1169787600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

For more than 10 years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been
working to correct a major hindrance to police work in the subway system: a
radio network that keeps transit officers underground from talking with
officers patrolling the streets above.

The goal was simple but potentially revolutionary: replace an antiquated
radio system with a network that would make it possible, for instance, for
an officer chasing a suspect down a subway stairway to radio ahead to other
officers.

Last October, after spending $140 million, the authority completed the
installation of the system citywide.

But it has not been turned on.

That is because the Police Department refuses to use it, saying the new
system is hobbled by widespread interference that garbles communication and
creates areas where radios cannot receive properly. ³What you get is
distorted audio,² said Joseph Yurman, a communications engineer for New York
City Transit. ³You can hear it, but it sounds as if you¹re talking through a
glass of water.²

Fixing the problem may require replacing new equipment with more advanced
components at a cost of up to $20 million more. If all goes well and
disputes over which agency will pay for the changes can be resolved, the
police say the full system could be turned on next year, some four years
behind schedule.

The decades-old radio disconnect between surface and subterranean police
officers is another example of the kind of communications problems that have
faced public safety agencies in New York City, most famously and tragically
evident on 9/11. The communication problems that day included the inability
of endangered firefighters to hear police radio broadcasts warning that the
north tower was about to collapse.

This time, the goal is to allow members of the same agency to communicate
with each other, whether dealing with a street crime gone underground or
something far more catastrophic, like an accident or terrorist attack in the
subway.

Fixing the interference is not the only problem. The authority¹s new system
uses a network of underground antenna cable that was already in place in the
tunnels. But the authority has discovered that 72 miles of cable ‹ one-fifth
of the system ‹ was so old and deteriorated it could not adequately carry
the signal.

The authority plans to replace the cable over the next several years at an
additional cost of $36 million. When all of the fixes are made, the project
will eventually have cost about $210 million, far more than its original
budget of $115 million.

In the meantime, transit police continue to use their old radios.

³We have no communication with the outside,² said one veteran transit police
officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. ³Something can be happening to
the street cops right upstairs and we don¹t even know.² He said fleeing
suspects knew they could take advantage of the communication gap by ducking
into the subway. ³This is no secret,² he said. ³The criminals know how it
works.²

Police officers patrolling the subways have long used a VHF radio system
that is separate from the UHF system used by officers working aboveground.
The two systems date back to the days when the transit police existed as a
separate force run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

In 1995, that force merged with the city department, and the authority
agreed to build a system that would carry regular city police radio signals
underground.

The subway is a technically difficult environment for radio operations, and
officials with both agencies said they could not have anticipated the
severity of the problems. That applies in particular to the interference,
which occurs when signals aboveground and below it mix as they pass through
station entrances and gratings in the street, producing a buzz on radios
that can range from a slight annoyance to a transmission killer.

Michael Hunter, president of RCC Consultants, which worked on the design in
its early stages, said radio networks in other subway systems also had to
cope with interference, but perhaps not to the same degree. ³In New York
it¹s a very tough problem because of the number of portals that go into the
subways and the number of vents and so on,² Mr. Hunter said. ³Some of the
newer subways don¹t have this problem.²

In December 1999, after years of design work, the transportation authority
chose two firms, E.A. Technologies and Petrocelli Electric, to build the
system. Engineering reports submitted to the authority¹s board say the
project was expected to be completed by June 2004.

Those reports also show that concerns about interference emerged as early as
2001. Nonetheless, in late 2001, the authority directed manufacturers to
begin producing the amplifiers.

Even as the equipment was being produced, however, the authority¹s engineers
were searching for ways to modify the system to reduce the interference. As
part of that effort, they began looking at digital components that were only
then being developed and had not been available when the system was
designed.

In mid-2004, the Police Department informed the transportation authority
that it would not use the radio system unless the interference was
eliminated, but a year later, officials at the authority made a concerted
push to get the department to see things their way.

According to project records maintained by the authority, top officials met
in September 2005 with their police counterparts to urge them to begin using
the radio system as is, with adjustments to come later to fix the
interference.

³Based on several discussions,² the records say, ³we got indication that
N.Y.P.D. will not accept the system without us addressing the T.D.I. issue,²
a reference to time domain interference, the technical term for the problem.
Talks continued throughout the fall and winter, according to the records,
but the Police Department refused to budge.

The authority forged ahead with construction and by the middle of last year
the installation was largely finished. In October, the authority formally
declared the contract with E.A. Technologies and Petrocelli complete ‹ only
there was no one to hand the long-awaited system off to.

³I don¹t think anybody anticipated the extent of the interference,² said
Inspector Charles F. Dowd, commander of the police communications division.
³As soon as we started testing, it became apparent there was a serious
problem.²

While agreeing that the interference needed to be corrected, transit
officials said the radio system could be put into use while a solution was
developed. Parts of the system in Manhattan have been ready since 2004, when
they were briefly activated (although apparently never used) as a backup
network during the Republican National Convention, they said.

³What¹s in place today is functional,² Mark Bienstock, a New York City
Transit program manager, said in an interview.

In a later e-mail message, Mr. Bienstock declined to say how widespread the
interference is. ³In general,² he wrote, interference ³is expected at every
entrance to the subway at street level. Its significance or severity is
subjective.²

That difference in perception has fueled a dispute in recent months over who
will pay for a fix. The Police Department insists that under the 1995
agreement that merged the police forces, the authority agreed to cover all
the costs involved in building the radio system. Officials at the authority,
on the other hand, say they have fulfilled their financial obligations, and
they want the police to pay half the $20 million repair cost.

Privately, officials at the authority accuse the police of stalling to force
the authority to pay the full cost. After the police formally accept the
system, they will be expected to share the expense of maintaining or
upgrading it with the authority.

³The issue is simply one of functionality,² Inspector Dowd said. ³If the
system isn¹t working in an area, the cops can¹t use it.²

Elliot G. Sander, who took over this month as executive director and chief
executive of the transportation authority, said he spoke to Police
Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly about the radio system on Tuesday and planned
to meet with him to resolve the financing issue.

While the police were intended as the radio system¹s primary user, it was
also designed to be used by the Fire Department, but on a different
frequency. They won¹t be able to talk with the police.

Mr. Yurman said the Fire Department radios were configured differently and
have already used the system. Francis X. Gribbon, a Fire Department
spokesman, said the department has been testing the system extensively and
has concerns about some areas of tunnels and stations where signals do not
reach.

Fire officials had previously asked the authority to make changes to the way
the system works in the underwater tunnels, and they agreed to split the
cost of those changes, which is estimated at $14 million.