We've Got A Bigger Problem

As initially conceived, this week's lead editorial was going to be about the city's collapsing infrastructure. First there was the trouble with the A and C lines, and the subsequent, unreported ripple effect that has screwed up service on nearly every other subway line in the city. (On Thursday morning, for instance, we were forced to take five different trains on the same line to get to the office.) At the same time, we had Con Ed telling pedestrians that if they wanted to live, they should avoid stepping on or touching anything made of metal while outside their homes. It turns out that the "repair job" they did after last year's electrocutions was a complete hoax.

These are just two very recent examples of the city's slide toward ruin. Meanwhile, the mayor is out there crowing about a budget surplus and everyone's up in arms because some radio station played a stupid song parody.

While digesting all of this, we came across something much more strange and disturbing.

Thursday's papers reported that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly denied the initial story that the fire that wreaked so much havoc on the A and C lines had been caused by a homeless man. We aren't certain what caused it, Kelly insisted, but it sure wasn't some vagrant building a bonfire in a shopping cart.

Then for some unknown reason, in the midst of all this denying, Commissioner Kelly found it necessary to make the following clarification:

"There's some notion floating out there that there are communities that live in the subway? That's simply not the case. There may have been 10 or 15 years ago, but that's not the situation now."

Excuse us?

What Kelly seems to be saying is this: "A homeless guy didn't start this fire. Oh, and by the way, no matter what you may have heard, there are no Mole People or C.H.U.D.s down there."

Is there is a more obvious way for a public official to come out and say, "We've got a major C.H.U.D. problem on our hands, people"? The dead giveaway here was Kelly's clear admission that the C.H.U.D. population was thriving as recently as "10 or 15 years ago." The city clearly thought they'd wiped them all out by 1990, and have only recently become aware that they missed a few. Worse, the ones they missed have not only been breeding, but they've been growing more militant as well. They're clearly no longer interested in simply grabbing the occasional tourist or Mole Person.

Is the sabotage of the A and C lines merely the first salvo in a terror campaign that will eclipse the events of 2001 and bring the city to its knees? Is the mayor now in the process of recognizing that all those millions dumped into security measures for high rises and public landmarks was a complete waste of money?

On the flipside, is it possible that all those aboveground security measures were simply an expensive diversionary tactic aimed at the public-and the C.H.U.D.s? Maybe the quiet emphasis on subway security over the past couple of years had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or sarin gas, after all, but was instead done in preparation for the inevitable C.H.U.D. offensive?

We certainly don't know the answers, but we think it's time someone started asking the mayor and Commissioner Kelly some mighty tough questions.