Jesus Fucking Christ... I used to wonder why Boston has snowplows parked around major events here, even in the summer, until I read about one of these attacks happening somewhere else. Then it made *perfect fucking sense* why every single cross street is blocked off with a snowplow or other bollard-like obstacle for large events.
We started taking security against that type of shit a *lot* more seriously after that one marathon incident here. It's hard to describe just how much that incident changed the city, and not in the reactionary "shoes off at airports" way that 9/11 did. They started doing a lot more of the simple *effective* shit like adding bollards to key pedestrian routes, acquiring portable bollard-like devices, and repurposing the big heavy plow trucks that wouldn't even flinch for anything smaller than a bus. ("One does not challenge the state plow truck for its territory. Unless one is a train." is a good way to describe those rolling bricks)
