By Michael Ventura
DNAinfo Senior Editor
MANHATTAN — The MTA has cut weekend security measures at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, according to a news report.
MTA Bridges and Tunnels police no longer man the entrances to the tunnel and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on the weekend, the Daily News reported. Instead, cameras keep an eye on things.
At the tunnel, there are plenty of police officers on the Queens side, the News said, but with no toll plaza in Manhattan, the East Side entrances to the tunnel have been unguarded since the summer.
The measures, revealed by the paper within a day of a fatal subway bombing in Moscow, were blasted by security sources.
"What if a terrorist wants to do something?" an unnamed source told the News. "God forbid someone walks in and wants to plant a bomb."
The paper also said the Queens-Midtown Tunnel's ventilation system is vulnerable, too.
The MTA said the tunnel was secure.
"[Bridges and Tunnels] has a fully-integrated electronic security system at select locations," MTA spokeswoman Judie Glave told the News. "That system is monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by our operations personnel and a response plan is in place."
Meanwhile, the NYPD sent heavily-armed police officers, some carrying machine guns, into the subway system on Monday to beef up security following the attacks in Russia.
