I was appalled to read your article Tramless Days on Roosevelt Island (Metro, Jan.  29) which jumped to the outrageous and inaccurate conclusion that the Tram is dispensable.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Tram is a critical piece of the City's mass transit infrastructure.  Some 3,000 New Yorkers þ a great many of them seniors, disabled persons, and schoolchildren þ use the Tram each day because they see it as a safer and faster alternative to the subway.  This is a significant number, given that Roosevelt Island has only 8,000 residents.

But what I find most disturbing is that The Times implies that the Tram is obsolete merely because it "does not pay the bills."  Almost no mass transit system in the world makes money.  If turning a profit is your measure of viability, we might as well shut down all of our subways, our buses, and our roads, for that matter.

Your article also allows a Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) spokesman to dismiss the importance of the Tram as a "nice icon."  Such a statement once again shows how out of touch RIOC is with the Island's residents þ a problem which your paper has covered in past articles.  To the people who live there, the Tram is more than an icon; it is the Statue of Liberty and the George Washington Bridge rolled into one.  It is a symbol of the Island's spirit and a truly indispensable part of daily life.

Gifford Miller
City Council Member
Fifth District - Manhattan

 
To the Editor,
The New York Times:

It would be unfortunate for all New Yorkers if the recent Tramway incident served as an excuse to permanently shut down the Tram.  Given the recent history of accidents caused by the rehabilitation of the 59th Street Bridge (including the crane hitting the Tram) it sounds to be a much more dangerous undertaking than the Tramway.  In the more than 25 years of its operation, the Tram has proven to be an energy-efficient, safe and inexpensive way of transporting large numbers of people.  It's also become a New York City icon, tourist attraction, and symbol of the City's ingenuity, linking a unique residential community in the middle of the East River, to Manhattan.

The Tram should really be regarded as the Island's bus, necessary, despite the subway, as bus service is a necessity in other New York City neighborhoods serviced by the subway system.  As welcome as the subway was when it arrived almost 20 years late, it does not make the Tram either redundant or obsolete.  Planned as a unique residential community, particularly for families with young children, the elderly and disabled, many Roosevelt Island residents can't use the subway, much as their counterparts must rely on bus transport in other parts of the City, despite available subway service.

And how would Roosevelt Islanders travel to work, school, the doctor, if subway service is delayed or interrupted, as so often happens? You can't hop a cab across the river.  As New York City residents, Roosevelt Islanders deserve to have a secondary means of mass transportation, just like their bus-riding neighbors across the water.

Rosina K. Abramson
President of RIOC, 1986-91