Local residents are opposing adding an elevator to a subway station because terrorists might use it to detonate a bomb. No, really. There's no actual threat analysis, only fear:
"The idea that people can then ride in on the subway with a bomb or whatever and come straight up in an elevator is awful to me," said Claudia Ward, who lives in 15 Broad Street and was among a group of neighbors who denounced the plan at a recent meeting of the local community board. "It's too easy for someone to slip through. And I just don't want my family and my neighbors to be the collateral on that."
[...]
Local residents plan to continue to fight, said Ms. Gerstman, noting that her building's board decided against putting decorative planters at the building's entrance over fears that shards could injure people in the event of a blast.
"Knowing that, and then seeing the proposal for giant glass structures in front of my building - ding ding ding! -- what does a giant glass structure become in the event of an explosion?" she said.
In 2005, I coined the term "movie-plot threat" to denote a threat scenario that caused undue fear solely because of its specificity. Longtime readers of this blog will remember my annual Movie-Plot Threat Contests. I ended the contest in 2015 because I thought the meme had played itself out. Clearly there's more work to be done.
from Subway Elevators and Movie-Plot Threats
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