The Daily News Weighs In
The Main Street WIRE requested permission to reprint editorials and an opinion column on the April 18 Tram mishap that appeared in The New York Sun, The Staten Island Advance, and the Daily News. Only the Daily News granted permission, and that editorial is reprinted here. The Sun opinion column, to which Islanders react on Page 8, can be read on line at http://www.nysun.com/article/31391. The Advance editorial is here  or by searching on the newspaper’s website at NYSun.com.

TOONERVILLE TRAM’S BOZO BRIGADE

New York State officials are assuring all and sundry that no way, no how, will the Roosevelt Island Tram be allowed back in service until an investigation is completed. Let’s do better than that. Let’s keep the gondolas in their little garages until that patronage gang called the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. comes up with a credible plan to keep the Trams running under all conditions short of an earthquake. And puts forth a system for completing rescues in, say, 11 minutes rather than 11 hours.

Listening to the RICO – oops, sorry, RIOC – culprits in the aftermath of this week’s Tramway drama was to ingest bilge more polluted than the East River. The crew of cronies led by Herb Berman, a former Brooklyn Democratic councilman who got his current job by kissing up to Gov. Pataki, is actually trying to sell the idea that it runs a top-notch professional show.

The bomfoggery is hilarious. Said one: "Putting the Tram online is not contingent upon us having that auxiliary system [a spare electric generator] in place. We already have a redundant backup system that operates the Tram currently." Yup. Except that the unnecessary spare was out for repairs Tuesday because the gang discovered it was a heap of slag when they tried to use it in a little-noticed Tram breakdown a while back. And except that no one could figure out how to make that "redundant backup system" work. And except that Berman’s band wasn’t quite drilled in the proper procedures in using that dangling rescue basket that finally got folks down. And that slooooow-moving basket is a monster issue in itself. Had the Tram cars been filled to capacity, people would still be up there.

The last time the Tram broke, in September, Berman’s chief engineer had to be helicoptered in from his Westchester home. Seems he was the only person who knew how to make a fix, which tells you all you need to know about these bunglers.

© Copyright Daily News, L.P., April 27, 2006