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TASK FORCES TAKE TO SUBWAYS, MACHINE GUNS IN TOW

Cops in commando gear, armed to the teeth with submachine guns and bomb-sniffing dogs, were on subway platforms and trains this morning on the first day of a federally funded anti-terror drive, drawing stares – and a few complaints – from rush-hour straphangers.

The TORCH teams of a half-dozen cops – each with a sergeant, five detectives and a dog, and hand-held radiation detectors -were stationed on platforms at some of the major transit hubs underground, including Times Square, 59th Street, the Port Authority and 14th Street. They’ll be on patrol during rush hour periods.

PHOTOS: Maching-Gun Equipped Cops Hit the Subways

The two-year initiative is one of a number of anti-terror programs funded with a $151.2 million grant from Homeland Security.

“The mission is to dissuade reconnaissance that may be ongoing,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at the Columbus Circle station this morning. “Our transportation system has been targeted unsuccessfully – now our transit system is safer than it’s ever been.”

Kelly said the city is always wary of a threat level that “ebbs and flows.”

“We’re doing everything we reasonably can do,” he said.

The teams look for a number of things, including suspicious packages, the commissioner said. “We don’t have enough resources to cover it all.”

On the No. 1 train platform at 59th Street, an impressed Josiah Guitian, 21, of Manhattan, watched the heavily armed team go to work.

“I don’t know if the subways need to be safer, but I don’t mind the extra protection,” he said, still noting nobody bothered him about two large bags he was hauling around.

Edward Watts, 30, however, was more critical.

“I don’t see the need to spend money on increased security,” he groused as he climbed upstairs. “The question for me is, ‘why now?’ It makes me think ‘Oh, suddenly you got some money, you better spend it.'”

But Chelsea rider Mark Brown, 45, said he’s been impressed with train safety, warning he thought the teams might “make people scared” at first.

Vanessa Bartlett, 22, a Marymount College student and Harlem resident, was more blunt.

“It’s intrusive to have guys with guns and a dog,” she complained. “What’s really going to happen if a bomb goes off? Too much money is going to the wrong places, but New Yorkers will tolerate anything after 9/11.”

The F-train uptown was stopped briefly at 14th Street by a TORCH team, as riders patiently waited for the announced “inspection” and then watched as the team spread out on the platform, eyeballing the crowds walking quietly by.

The teams may be coming to a neighborhood near you, cops acknowledged.

“If we get other intelligence we will obviously put them down [other stations] as well on an as-needed basis,” a police spokesman said.