New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that he "couldn't disagree more" with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's statement suggesting that protecting trains against bombings is a lower priority than airplane security.

"You have to worry about planes," Bloomberg said in his weekly radio interview on WABC. "But it is the everyday kind of thing we have to protect," which, he said, included subways, buses and the water supply.

He also said his office and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency responsible for public transport in New York area, are "very close" to an agreement on beefing up transit patrols that could be announced as early as the weekend.

"The NYPD will put more officers on overtime, in the subways and on the buses," he said, adding that the move would give the city "more than what we have and the MTA's got to pay for it," he said.

Bloomberg also directed unusually strong criticism at members of the Senate who supported a homeland-security bill this week that actually cuts funds for train protections by 50 million dollars.

"Anybody that voted for the ... bill voted to make America less safe. I don't care how they want to phrase it, that's the truth," he said in his weekly radio interview.

Meanwhile, many New York city commuters expressed dissatisfaction over comments made by Home Security chief Michael Chertoff, who said a bomb in a subway car "may kill 30 people," compared with an airplane, which "has the capacity to kill 3,000 people."

"I think the federal government should give funding to states to protect mass transit system," said one commuter. Others argued that subway and buses pose a greater risk to the average citizens since they are part of their daily routine.

Some who work in mass transit were appalled by Chertoff's remarks.

"Whether it's 30 or 3,000, it's all lives," said a bus line supervisor. "There are ordinary people that go to work every day.

Why should they take their lives in their hands?" he asked.

Source: Xinhua