Security guarantees Boston gridlock

WASHINGTON – They’re sealing the manhole covers near Boston’s Fleet Center, the site of next week’s Democratic National Convention.

They’re also removing trash bins and newspaper boxes from nearby sidewalks to thwart any would-be bombers trying to hide explosives.

Worries about car bombs will lead security planners to close a section of Interstate 93, a key artery that runs just 40 feet from the convention center, along with 40 miles of commuter routes. They’re also padlocking an important subway station beneath the center and closing a section of Boston Harbor, which nevertheless will be patrolled by an armada of law-enforcement vessels, including machine gun-equipped Coast Guard cruisers, just in case.

For Boston, a week of security nightmares and urban gridlock looms as 35,000 delegates, dignitaries and members of the news media descend on the Massachusetts capital.

“It will be sort of like a three-day Northeaster in the wintertime, a blizzard that closes the city down,” said Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The climax of the four-day event will come Thursday when Sen. John Kerry, the state’s junior senator and Boston resident, accepts his party’s nomination for president.

But for the first national political convention since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, law enforcers are taking no chances.

“There are huge security precautions that were never, never even thought of prior to 9-11,” said Lt. Kevin Foley, a Boston Police Department spokesman. “From terrorists to a biological attack to demonstrators to anarchists, you try to plan for everything.”

Inside the hall, delegates and others will undergo intense scrutiny. Banned items include knitting needles, umbrellas and flashlights.

Outside the hall, however, is where security precautions have caused disruptions and considerable angst, from residents of tony Beacon Hill – Kerry’s neighborhood – riled over missing trash cans to suburban commuters wondering how they’ll get to work.

Subway and bus commuters have been warned not to carry anything larger than a purse or a briefcase.

Many downtown business owners have thrown up their arms and told employees to take vacation or work from home next week.

Boston’s conflicted attitude is probably best expressed by its latest convention slogan: “Let’s work around it.”

And Boston will try to do so with the aid of about 3,000 local, state and federal law officers who will patrol the convention center and nearby area.

Foley said the police will have “a presence” at every delegation hotel and at many of the nearly 1,000 events planned for the week.

They’ll be aided by more than 100 bomb-sniffing dogs borrowed from various agencies and jurisdictions, the biggest collection ever amassed in a city, police said.

Yet even with all that, backed up by two years of painstaking planning, he cautioned: “We have no way of knowing what will happen.”

The blueprint to protect the Democrats’ four-day party is unprecedented. The federal government will spend at least $50 million on security, nearly half the convention’s entire budget. The total cost won’t be known until the event concludes, officials said.