The WIRE has noticed something pleasantly surprising of late. It’s getting harder to keep up with news developments on the Island, and that’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing because it means there’s movement.

Islanders remember February of 2004, when the Red Bus route was changed in a way that inconvenienced just about everybody and left senior and disabled residents freezing in a particularly cold mid-winter, waiting for transportation that seemed to come only after body temperature reached the bone-snapping lower limit of human endurance. It was an ill-advised attempt at a solution to a simple problem for which there were a variety of other fixes. But it just stayed in place, an unresponsive non-resident RIOC stubbornly clinging to its uninformed view of what was best for those who actually used the service and found it falling short of the most reasonable expectations.

Fast-forward to June 2007. RIOC has again changed the Red Bus routing – a move made necessary by the elimination of the Tram station turnaround for Southtown construction. RIOC President Steve Shane had observed that "unhappiness has apparently abated" (The RIOC Column, June 2 WIRE), only to learn (see our story in this issue, RIRA’s letter, and resident letters) that unhappiness survived his observation.

In recent times past, that would very likely have been the end of it. RIOC would disappear into 591 Main Street, the situation would continue, annoyance would mount, and the sense of RIOC as an unresponsive monolith would grow.

But this week, RIOC’s relatively new president responded quickly to the RIRA letter. The result – a meeting next week to work through the options and, perhaps, devise a replacement routing with the direct involvement of the residents who most often experience the inconveniences of a RIOC error. And, we might note, this is all happening in warm weather, when experimentation and adjustment is far more palatable than in the coldest months.

There’s other movement, too, and we’re not talking about the scaffolding now going up around Rivercross to match that around Island House.

We’re seeing a RIOC that’s lighter on its feet, more engaged with residents, more willing to listen and respond. Not all problems have gone away (the resident ownership plans seem stalled, for example), but it’s a refreshing change – to be hard-pressed to keep up with developments.

It happened again – a Roosevelt Island Day without rain.

It even seemed to threaten for a while, then rewarded our faith with tolerable temperatures and zero precipitation.

The good weather is only the crowning touch, though. Watching the kids at the petting zoo and on the rides, seeing Bonnie Sherk’s Agrarian Aggregation digging in the dirt at PS/IS 217, and to top it off, seeing Dorothy Donald dance in Good Shepherd Plaza... It just doesn’t get any better.

Kudos to Doryne Isley and her staff and all the volunteers and sponsors who helped put it together.

DL