How To Get On Or Off Roosevelt Island, This Weekend: A Quick Guide

Avoid some of the unnecessary chaos with our quick guide for this weekend, the first without F Train subway service with many to follow.

by David Stone

The Roosevelt Island Daily News

A Quick Guide for This Weekend, August 25th – August 28th, 2023

Don’t Get Stranded: All subway service to and from Roosevelt Island ends tonight – Friday – at 9:45. That’s pretty early if you’re out and about at the beginning of the weekend. You might not expect it. If stranded in Manhattan, the Tram runs until 3:30 a.m. on weekends. You may have to wait behind tourists with OMNY readers now in place. Stranded in Queens or Brooklyn? Take an Uber.
Download the MTA App on your smartphone. You’ll need it for bus route information during the shutdown and after.
MTA Shuttle Buses: A free shuttle runs from the Roosevelt Island subway station to and from Queens Plaza. Hours and timing have not been announced. Local sources claim it will run at 6-minute intervals, but although they’ll be frequent during the day, a 6-minute schedule is unlikely overnight.
From 6:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m., consider the NYC Ferry. There’s also an app that will tell you where the nearest landing is when you open it. You can also buy tickets on the app and find schedules. Always a good ride. For Roosevelt Island, the ferries connect with 34th Street (with MTA buses nearby), Wall Street, 96th Street and others.
The Q102 MTA bus is reliable and underused. To and from Roosevelt Island, it’s a short, 5 – 10-minute hop to Queens Plaza where numerous subway lines and other buses connect. You can get almost anywhere, 24X7.
If you plan on using the Roosevelt Island Tram, be mindful that it will be crammed with tourists for much of the weekend. And with OMNY readers now installed, Roosevelt Islanders have lost the privilege of skipping the long MetroCard tourist lines.
Expect next to nothing from RIOC. Immune from resident concerns, the state agency that always gets it right scheduled an embarrassingly limited Saturday and Sunday red bus shuttle from the Roosevelt Island Tram Plaza to 2nd Avenue. It operates only between 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. because it works for them.