newjerseynewsroom.com

The Royal Air Force is patrolling London's skies and the Royal Navy has warships in the River Thames. The RAF will shoot down a plane as a last resort if they feel it is a threat to the Games.

Ground based air defense systems have been installed around London.

Some 13,000 troops will be on the ground.

London's mass transit system will be snarled as part of the plan to get athletes around the city to compete in events which includes the use of public transportation. The NYC2012 bid included the use of mass transit and the PATH trains to get people from place to place. London area businesses have been asked to stagger work hours and if possible give workers a vacation or allow them to work from home between July 21 and Sept. 9.

Key London roads will be sealed off from residents as some 250 miles of London roads have been designated for use by athletes and international Olympics personnel alone during the Games.

Had New York hosted the Games, similar security measures would have been in place. There would have been defense positions set up in New York and New Jersey; the use of PATH trains and ferries across the Hudson would have been severely compromised for New Jersey commuters. The Hudson River would have been filled with war ships, and the skies over the New York City corridor would have been patrolled by fighter planes.

Major thoroughfares would have been closed off and that included the possibility of major traffic snarls around Route 3, Route 17 and the New Jersey Turnpike near the Meadowlands.

Passengers flying out of Newark, along with LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy Airport, would have faced longer security delays and lines as officials would have stepped up surveillance at the airports.

The cost of security would have been mostly absorbed by the federal government but already strained local budgets in Bergen County municipalities would have been pushed to an extreme limit because those municipalities would have had to be involved in an extraordinary security effort.

The Olympics would have changed the area and not for the better.

Come to think of it, the traffic slowdown on the George Washington Bridge isn’t all that bad.

It could be far worse.

New York could have been hosting the 2012 Olympics.

Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." He can be reached at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition" is available at www.bickley.com and Amazon.