From time to time residents have talked about ways to capitalize on the uniqueness of the Tramway to bring needed funds to Roosevelt Island.  There was the notion of a kind of discreet sponsorship under which our special means of river-hopping might be known – for example – as The Sony Tramway.  There might even be a small sign somewhere acknowledging the corporate contribution to the nation's only commuter cable-car system.

New York is advertising central, of course, and we're accustomed to corporate names being attached to our institutions.  The JVC Jazz Festival comes to mind.

But RIOC President Robert Ryan now says he's thinking about shrink-wrapping the Tram cabins (the buckets, he calls them) and turning them into billboards-in-motion visible from the FDR Drive, the Queensboro Bridge, and much of the Upper East Side.  Picture a Coca-Cola logo wrapped around you as the Tramway brings you home at day's end.

Now picture it at night, with lights added.

Now picture it advertising Preparation H.

Now picture it the way it is now.  That's the way it should stay.

Thoughts of creative funding deserve credit.  But this idea is one that shouldn't get off the ground.

While just about every mass transit system in the country is subsidized with tax dollars, Roosevelt Island's Tramway limps along losing money, sans MetroCard, subsidized only by the funds RIOC doesn't spend on the general maintenance the Island so badly needs.  That thought should make Islanders furious – but our guessing is that anger is nothing compared to the uproar from residents if their beloved Tram becomes a billboard.