With RIOC acting as messenger, we learned on Friday about a coming transportation double hit for Roosevelt Islanders, both on short notice. RIOC will shoulder the blame, but the real culprits are the usual ones: the MTA and Leitner-POMA.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
The double hit starts on Monday. That’s when the MTA extends its previously announced F Train Shuttle shutdown for another day on very short notice. It’s Presidents’ Day. Schools and government offices close, lessening the impact on commuters.
But plenty of us will work on Monday, though, and there will be a crush of thrill-seeking tourists as there was over the weekend. I was personally shoved aside by a pair of teens eager for a window view in the kind of incident that’s kept many resident from chancing a Tram ride for months.
For Roosevelt Islanders, long gone are the days of peaceful glides to and from home across the river.
“The MTA recently announced that in addition to this Saturday and Sunday, there also will be no F-train shuttle service on Roosevelt Island this coming Monday, February 19th,” RIOC announced late Friday.
A huge looming problem is that RIOC did not, at the same time, extend its limited weekend 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. Red Bus shuttles to and from Manhattan. That means, RIOC execs will sit out the holiday pressures at home while residents manage as best they can.
PSD officers were on hand over the weekend, but there is no guarantee that they’ll be back on Monday either.
Expect extensive Tram crowding because, on a holiday weekend, tourists will be in town, and plenty of us will still be going to work.
Then, The Double Hit Throws The Bigger Blow
“We have been informed by Tram operator Leitner-POMA that the North Tram cabin needs to be taken out of service for a scheduled four-day period to perform emergency repair work on a hydraulic tension cylinder at the Manhattan Tram Station,” RIOC posted at the last minute on Friday.
“We have scheduled the repair work to take place from Tuesday, February 20th through Friday, February 23rd so as not to interfere with weekend Tram service while the F-train is offline.”
How can an emergency be “scheduled?”
That’s right. On a high tourist week, the already overcrowded Tram service will be doubly overloaded with only a single cabin in operation. RIOC has not announced any relief in the way of shuttle buses or otherwise.
A couple of questions come immediately to mind:
- If it’s really an emergency, why wait until Tuesday? You can expect as much transparency from the RIOC/Leitner-POMA alliance on this as you’ve gotten on the frightening Tram cabin swaying incidents. That is, next to none, and what you do get will be deceptive.
- What single item repair takes four days? Even auto mechanics do better than that. Are specialists working 24 hours a day to get this done fast or just hours that are better for them?
- When will RIOC exercise some authority and remind Leitner-POMA who is working for whom?
Finally…
All things considered with the MTA, Roosevelt Islanders fare no better or worse than the rest of city suffering under this poorly managed transit monopoly. Complaining is about as useful as spitting into the wind.
But Leitner-POMA is another story. Earning a contract payout high enough to turn the Tram into a money-loser all by itself, the private company feels responsibility free.
Just as they blew smoke and flashed mirrors about safety at a hopelessly compliant RIOC Board after a series of cabin-swinging incidents – without ever addressing the public – leading to a New York State Department of Labor review, they show that lessons have been learned.
Only RIOC can change this. Will they?
The Committee Man
Committees are supposed to be where outcomes are shaped. They are meant to be the place where questions slow decisions down, where competing interests surface, and where public responsibility is exercised before anything reaches a formal vote.
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