Straphangers getting off the No. 1 train in Columbus Circle on Thursday came face-to-face with a sign of the times: NYPD cops armed with submachine guns, body armor, and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling the subways.

"I just got off the subway on my way to work and there are cops with big rifles. It's pretty intimidating," said Makeda Mays-Green, who ran into the teams after getting off a No. 1 train in Columbus Circle.

The Torch teams join the NYPD existing counterterrorism arsenal, including bag searches of subway riders and the regular patrols of its 2,600 transit officers.

"I wish we could live in a world where you don't need police officers with machine guns in your subway stations, but unfortunately that's not where we are today," said Skolnik, who lives in Israel.