NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg rode the subway Friday morning to assure commuters that the city is fully prepared for a potential terror threat before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We don't want al-Qaida or any other organization ... to take away the freedoms without firing a shot," he said getting off at the City Hall stop in lower Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge. Bloomberg urged New Yorkers to just "go back to work. And leave it to the professionals."
U.S. officials said Thursday that they were chasing a credible but unconfirmed al-Qaida threat to use a car bomb on bridges or tunnels in New York or Washington.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday that police were beefing up security at bridges and tunnels, setting up vehicle checkpoints, doing bomb sweeps of parking garages, and towing more illegally-parked cars.
New York City commuters were told to expect a show of force at Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station and the Times Square subway station because of a previously planned counterterror drill with rail agencies.
Gail Murray, an administrative assistant who works in Manhattan, took the security threat in stride as she listened to Long Island Rail Road announcements aboard a train heading from Queens Village to Penn Station.
"I thought, 'Here we go again,'" she said. "That's all just part of living in New York City."
She said whether or not she was worried, she would have to take mass transit.
"I don't have the luxury of working from home," she said.
Authorities were stopping vehicles at the 59th Street bridge, which connects Manhattan to Queens, causing a major backup.
At Penn Station, transit police in helmets and bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles watched the crowds of commuters.
Officials were swabbing passengers' bags near an escalator to the train platforms, and police searched the bags of passengers at the entrance to a subway station. National Guard troops in camouflaged fatigues moved among the throng, eyeing packages.
Roseanne Lee, 64, said her taxi was stopped twice at police checkpoints on its way from the Upper East Side to Penn Station. Police looked in the windows of the cab but did not question her or the driver, she said. At one checkpoint, police were searching a moving van, she said.
The delays turned a 15-minute ride into a 35-minute one and cost her $21 instead of the usual $12.
"But I don't care," Lee said. "It's better to be safe. You can't stop doing what you're doing because of these threats, you just have to be careful."
Police tours were extended, effectively increasing the strength of the patrol force, and the department prepared to respond to an increase in calls of suspicious packages. They also added more police vehicles with license plate readers.
"There will be increased focus on tunnels and bridges and infrastructure in general, as well as landmark locations, houses of worship and government buildings," Kelly said.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site, was also at a heightened state of alert Friday. Spokesman Steve Coleman said there would be increased vehicle checks at all crossings, increased police presence at all facilities, and increased bag checks at the airports, bus and rail terminals.
Kelly planned a call later Friday with members of local law enforcement around the city.
But city officials said there would be a lot done behind the scenes that New Yorkers wouldn't even notice.
"Here's what you're gonna do: If you see something, say something," Bloomberg said Thursday night. "And in the next few days, we should all keep our eyes wide open."
He stressed that the most important thing to do was to go on with life as usual.
Many New Yorkers were doing just that. Dressed in jeans and a Teamsters T-shirt, Michael Murphy of Seaford, didn't have terror threats on his mind as he headed to work at the armory at 26th and Lexington Avenue, where he was helping to stage shows for Fashion Week.
"Like they said last night, we have the greatest police department in the world," said Murray, 49. "I'm confident they'll do the job."
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Associated Press writers Samantha Gross, Chris Hawley and Amanda Barrett contributed to this report.
