RIOC’s established but mostly secret method for giving seniors and disabled riders priority access to the Tram will make your head spin.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
According to an article posted by the Roosevelt Islander, this is how it works. Or is supposed to work. PSD leadership confirmed it, although there is no explanation as to why it isn’t posted anywhere. Almost nobody knows about.
The Alleged Plan
Fellow Roosevelt Islanders: Please be reminded: Seniors and Disabled have PRIORITY, and MAY board trams FIRST. Here’s how:
- Put your MetroCard through the reader at the gate, swing turnstile around so no one else can enter on your card,(or in Manhattan, you can put the card in the reader by the gate, near the Tram overseer stall),
- Then go to the DISEMBARKATION side of whichever tram car you’re waiting for.
- When the incoming tram riders are done disembarking that car, the Tram operator will let you on before he/she opens the doors for regular boarding. RIOC/TRAM employees know this is the method devised to help older and/or mobility challenged residents.
High Taxes and No Link to Competence
RIOC gets credit for having a plan at all, but it ends there. It has never been circulated and, as far as we know, has never been posted. Check for yourself on RIOC’s web page for the Tram. Look around as you like, but let us save you the trouble. You won’t find this guidance anywhere else either.
But, maybe, it’s just as well because it’s about as useful as a frozen zipper on your blue jeans.
What’s Wrong?
Where do we start? How about with high taxes? Looked at objectively, it appears that Roosevelt Islanders pay higher taxes than any other community in the nation. That includes the hidden RIOC Tax. The community has a right to expect more but almost always gets less.
But this bizarre guide for seniors and disabled takes the cake.
- First, it assumes you can always get through the congestion of tourists to the gates (and that you use MetroCards only.) The situation is worse on the elevated Manhattan side. It’s aggravated by the fact that there are usually no PSD officers around. The Leitner-POMA station agent whose job it is to assist is usually hiding in the booth or out for a smoke or a toilet. Experiment. Rent of borrow a wheelchair. See how it works for you on Saturday afternoon.
- “Then go to the DISEMBARKATION side of whichever tram car you’re waiting for…” is rich. Skip over the challenge of getting through the tourist crowd. Try looking up “DISEMBARKATION” on your cellphone dictionary. Like God, it’s a verb, not a noun. How are you supposed to know what side that is? And what if the cabin is already in the station, boarding passengers?
- The “Tram operator will let you on before he/she opens the doors for regular boarding.” Presuming you got there, here’s what the Roosevelt Islander added: “Also, be advised that several Roosevelt Island seniors and disabled residents have reported that some Tram employees are not aware of RIOC’s Tram boarding preference for Seniors and Disabled residents policy and did not allow them priority boarding.”
The trouble with high taxes and bloated rosters
Reality interferes with RIOC and PSD’s dreams of effective service. While some at RIOC do exceptional work, the Red Bus drivers especially, others do not. Usually, the cause is a lack of effective leadership, affirmative policies, transparency and accountability.
At RIOC, as previously noted, Public Safety leadership floats in an aura of protection. They do not answer media inquiries nor do they account for their activities. You can rest assured that they will not explain how the Tram access rules were devised. Why is nothing on the website? How is anyone supposed to know?
More significantly, they will never hold collaborative meetings with those affected by their decisions. Instead, PSD routinely opts for passive solutions. It’s like its leadership can’t get their hands dirty. Think flashing stop signs instead of patrols. Think speed humps. PSOs that only reluctantly interact with residents.
Consistently, the priority Tram access guide never suggests contacting anyone for help. PSD seems unaware that its role is to serve Roosevelt Islanders. Its focus should not be on its own little covey of overpaid managers.
Disabled folks and seniors are left to fend for themselves as they always have. The priority access plan is simply there to avoid PSD getting directly involved on a daily basis. And it’s about as useful as it would have been had they just chucked it in the trash in the first place.
AVAC Is Working. The Model Is What’s Aging.
Roosevelt Island’s AVAC system is often discussed as if it were either a miracle or a menace. In truth, it is neither. It is functioning infrastructure that has reached a point in its lifecycle where how it is maintained matters as much as whether it exists at all.
