Terrorist acts like those committed in London scare the daylights out of everybody, I admit it. However, they should not be cause for reason to be thrown out the window. Hysteria should not stand in the way of the fact that Los Angeles desperately needs rail transit. . . .

Terrorism is not the only factor in the public-safety equation. The fact is, between freeway shootings and good old-fashioned car accidents, the roads around here aren't all that much safer than the road to the airport in Baghdad. Traffic-choked roads also create danger by slowing down emergency response teams; I have experienced this personally when, after being mugged near my former residence in Koreatown, it took an LAPD Wilshire Division squadcar 45 minutes to get through traffic and meet me at the corner of Olympic and Vermont.

The notion that buses are somehow safer from terrorist acts because of their mobility is misguided. Israel offers abundant examples of commuter buses being blown up. A crowded bus like the 333 or the Wilshire Boulevard Rapid line would make a fine target for a suicide bomber, or even for someone to slip a purse-sized bomb under a seat and then leave.

Improving public safety in Los Angeles means that something has to be done about traffic. Buses are not a solution to the Westside's long-term traffic problem — at the least, because nobody will ride them if they can afford not to. Anyone who has had to suffer through a long bus ride with an intoxicated and/or mentally ill person shouting abusive language is going to prefer the privacy of their automobile if a faster alternative isn't available.

In cities where the middle class makes heavy use of the bus system, it is usually because automobile ownership is prohibitively expensive. Trains, on the other hand, are attractive if they are faster than driving would be. (Given the speeds of the Blue and Gold lines, I admit that this is a mighty big "if.")

Now, I don't support putting the Expo Line on the existing Pacific Electric right-of-way next to Cheviot Hills — I would much rather that it go down the median of Venice Boulevard and then turn up Sepulveda or Sawtelle before resuming its trip west to Santa Monica — but if it were to go under the 10 at that spot, it's not like the freeway itself would be in much danger. It takes a lot more explosive force to demolish a concrete overpass than it does to destroy a bus or a train car, and anyone trying to smuggle a 500-pound bomb on a train car would be somewhat conspicuous.

What I think is far more dangerous is the fact that on Sepulveda, Sawtelle and National, vehicles are allowed to park underneath the freeway. A 2,000-pound fertilizer-and-diesel bomb like the one that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City could easily destroy any of these overpasses, resulting in untold amounts of carnage in cars at the 10/405 junction. Any of the RVs or commercial delivery trucks I see parked in these overpasses every night could well be carrying several tons of explosives.

The threat of terrorism, while grave, should not cause all other concerns to go out the window. Dispassionate cost-benefit analysis is necessary for policy selection. It would be foolish to let one terrorist incident, however tragic, outweigh the abundant benefits that could come from building the Exposition line all the way to Santa Monica.