Editorial
No Injuries, Many Lessons

Yes, we can be grateful for that. We’d have much more to lament if one of the passengers stuck on the Tram April 18 had a medical emergency. As City Councilmember G. Oliver Koppell suggested, and as RIRA Common Councilor Frank Farance confirmed, we were lucky – very lucky.

There’s a good deal to be learned from what happened three Tuesdays ago.

For RIOC, there are stern lessons about oversight. When one company supplies the system, sells the parts, supplies the consultants, and does the inspections – and you later find that repeated "faults" in the Tramway drive system were passed over by punching a reset button and never thoroughly investigated (until now), you know you’ve screwed up.

RIOC can compound that screw-up by hiring close associates of Doppelmayr to do the more extensive inspection and checkup that the April 18 incident requires, but shouldn’t. As Koppell advised, "I would recommend that you engage an independent engineer, not somebody who is, in any way, connected to the Doppelmayr Company or to the manufacturer of the system." That’s because not just RIOC’s failures of oversight are in question, but the work of Doppelmayr itself.

There’s another lesson for RIOC in communications. Those stranded aboard the Tram cabins complained that they got more information from media reports relayed by cell phone than those in charge provided. That was a microcosmic short-term and critical example of the sense of security that goes missing when officials clam up. The macrocosmic and long-term view is important, too, and RIOC should learn to communicate and consult when making decisions to turn stop-sign zones into potentially dangerous yield zones, or deciding on changes to the Red Bus schedule and routing. (We have new reports of bus-bunching, the inevitable result when departures are not tied to some other, regular, triggering event.)

For residents now worried that their beloved Tram may be next to forever coming back into service, there’s a lesson as old as the Declaration of Independence: When you don’t elect the folks who push the buttons, you can expect them to take care of their own interests – not yours. It’s an old plaint, but it bears repeating: The RIOC Board of Directors should be composed of residents elected by residents, and the Board should have to power to hire and fire the president of RIOC. How do we get there? Well, certainly not by sitting on our political behinds with our political hands under them.

Jessica Lappin was on-scene at the Tramway shortly after the April 18 situation became known, at first in Manhattan, then on the Island. She and the Island’s elected politicians, save one, were on hand next day, too, promising a hearing (already held) and new action to protect the rights of Roosevelt Island residents.

Pete Grannis intends to hold the State government’s feet to the fire on its responsibilities to Roosevelt Island, and we need to urge him on. Too much, for too long, has been neglected here. The Island must live with the results of too many bad decisions made during the reign of George Pataki.

It’s time that gets reversed, and Pete’s the guy to do it.

Together, they’re formidable, and we gladly cheer them on – both Pete and Jessica.

DL