Politics & Power Quote by John Mica

10.2 billion trips is the kind of number that turns everyday commuting into something like critical infrastructure. John Mica deploys it as a preemptive argument: mass transit is not just a service; it is a high-volume, high-visibility system whose failure would be national news and national trauma. The statistic does double duty, making transit feel both indispensable and exposed. It invites a particular kind of fear math: with that many rides, the question stops being if something could happen and becomes when.

The subtext is less about celebrating public transportation than about justifying security posture and spending. Notice the careful phrasing: the U.S. has not had a “major” transit attack since 9/11. “Major” leaves room for smaller incidents and, more importantly, keeps the threat narrative alive without sounding hysterical. Then come the international examples - Moscow, London, Mumbai - a rhetorical importation of vulnerability. The implied logic is that American exceptionalism doesn’t apply to subways.

Context matters: 2009-2010 sits inside the post-9/11 security state, when “preparedness” was a politically safe word that could cover everything from surveillance and policing to grants for scanners, cameras, and emergency drills. Mica’s line is engineered to sound like sober prudence, not panic. But it’s also a quiet push to treat riders as potential targets first and citizens second, framing the commute as a theater of risk where prevention can justify almost any expansion of authority.