Four Options for Tramway

RIOC President Steve Shane outlined Tramway alternatives for an audience of Islanders Thursday night. There was good news, and there was bad news.

The good news is that RIOC has all the money it needs to take any of four possible paths for the future of the system. There's a State budget allocation; there is money already set aside for track rope replacement; and there is expected or available general income in RIOC's cash stream.

The bad news is that the most likely solutions will involve at least six months of downtime, possibly seven, unless RIOC engages in some hyperspending to gain a little time by imposing a high-intensity work schedule.

One other tidbit of good news: None of this is likely to result in Tramway outages for at least a year.

But start it must, for, at a minimum, the Tramway's track ropes must soon be replaced with new ones.

The RIOC Board of Directors will meet October 18 (see ComingUp, page 3) and, because of the State budgeting process, will be urged to choose a course of action.

Alternatives

Shane outlined four approaches for the 65 or so residents who showed up for the presentation:

• Alternative 1 would take care of the track ropes, replace some critical components, and involve only two months of downtime. It would cost only about $5.6 million. But the engineers give it a life expectancy of only seven years; one reason is that the system would not be fully modernized, and would mostly use mechanical parts equivalent to the current 30-year-old setup.
• Alternative 2 would involve a "fundamentally new system" with a probable 30 years of useful life ahead of it. The cost would be $14.25 million - just about the amount the State has set aside. Six months of downtime would be involved.
• Alternative 3 would result in a system very similar to that in Alternative 2, but it would add an alternative drive motor, increasing reliability. The hit in downtime would be seven months, and the cost would be $17.25 million.
• Alternative 4 would involve a departure from the present "jigback" or "clothesline" system in which cabins move simultaneously in opposite directions. In this scheme, the two sides of the system would be separated, and they would be able to operate independently. Cost: $20.4 million and seven months of downtime.

Shane clearly prefers the fourth alternative, as did most of the residents who engaged in a Q&A after his presentation. Shane cited greater reliability, operating flexibility (half the system could be idled in non-rush periods, or for maintenance), and a stranded-cabin rescue scheme in which a bridge would allow passengers to cross from the cabin on the disabled side to a cabin brought even with it on the other side.

Coping With Downtime

Residents were concerned about another set of alternatives - what to do for transportation without a Tramway to relieve subway overcrowding, especially at rush hour, or to cope when the F line is out of commission for one reason or another. Extra subway trains are simply not operationally feasible, according to the MTA, so reliance could be placed on buses taking rush-hour commuters to Queens Plaza to board subway trains there. But Shane and others observed that buses going all the way to Manhattan were slow at times, inconvenient almost all the time, unreliable, and underutilized in previous Tramway outages.

It seemed apparent that the subway, which now handles two-thirds of the morning rush traffic (see graph, page 12) would get some additional action during a planned Tramway outage. For some who commute at the peak, this would probably mean watching multiple trains load and leave before they could board.

Shane was prepared for the concern. "It is my pledge," he said, "that I am going to try to see whether RIOC has the resources to devote itself to organizing a timetable that will minimize the [Tramway] downtime. That will cost more, so that rather than costing $20 million, it may cost as much as $25 million, so RIOC would have to come up with $10 million... Whether we would allocate the additional money is up to the [RIOC] Board [of Directors]."

Breakeven

Shane had some good news about the Tram's current financials. "Tram usage is up and now we're at breakeven," he said, acknowledging that the calculation ignores the original capital investment. He said that income now runs to almost $300,000 a month, even while costs are going up for parts, people, and energy. He said the New York Power Authority has warned RIOC to expect a 15% increase in electricity cost next year.

Cost figures for the four alternatives, projected over the life of each, produced some numbers showing that annual revenue exceeded annual cost of operation. The simplest alternative, number 1, would produce a net income of six cents per passenger trip for its projected usefulness of seven years. But it would produce a loss of ten cents per ride if figured at five years of useful life - or 19 cents if the system life could be stretched to ten years.

For the others, with a projected 30 years of life, the numbers are more solid:

• Alternative 2, 17 cents per ride.
• Alternative 3, 11 cents.
• Atternative 4, 6 cents -- lower because of the higher initial cost of a separated system.

Whatever course is chosen, Shane said, "This is not a waste of money. The investment of this money is appropriate if you make the cost-benefit assumptions. We have demonstrated to the State watchdogs that we're spending the State money wisely, no matter which of the alternatives we choose."

Annual Downtime

According to the records, today's Tram system is down some 850 hours a year for standard maintenance work, and that would probably continue to be the number if the fastest, lowest-cost alternative (#1) were selected, according to Shane. Annual downtime drops to 580 hours under Alternative 2, 440 under Alternative 3, and all the way down to just 25 hours a year - essentially nil - with the independent systems of Alternative 4. As Shane discussed the choices, he emphasized the reliability for passengers in a separated system, and suggested that independent operation of cabins might also produce a rush-hour passenger-load increase of 10% by allowing two more trips per hour. "You want the system to be working when you get there to use it," he said, emphasizing the greater dependability the Tramway consultants said would be available from independently operable cabins.

"You can always count on the system," Shane went on. "I think that is a huge benefit. It comes with a larger cost and a cost in [longer] downtime [during construction], but it has a major benefit, obviously reducing the future downtime. It gives you flexibility. We can take one [side] out of operation, maintain it, then put it back in service. During off-peak hours, we can operate one car rather than two, with one operator rather than two."

Prof. Rene Testa of the Columbia University Graduate School of Engineering, Shane's right-hand consultant in analyzing the data brought in by the three consulting firms that pronounced today's system safe and reasonably reliable, sat quietly throughout Shane's presentation, answering only one question during the later Q&A; Shane carried the ball calmly throughout, getting annoyed with a questioner only once when told, "You can't take the system out of service. Lives will be lost." Shane pointed out that there is no choice - that, at a minimum, track ropes must be replaced.

Constraints

In discussing the possibilities for revising the Tramway, Shane listed a series of constraints RIOC faces; they tend to place hard limits on any desire to increase the system's capacity. They include these:

• Cabins can't increase much in weight, because the towers have limits and, as a practical matter, cannot be completely rebuilt.
• Cabins can't be wider, because the Manhattan station can't be modified without City permitting that would entail giving up "grandfathered" status for parameters -- like height over Second Avenue -- that have grown more stringent since the Tramway was built.
• A double-decker system is out for the same reason, as well as for the reason of weight.
• There are sway limits that would affect any change of design, because a new building is planned very close to the Tram's path.

Questions & Answers

Residents who stood up to question and comment elicited some additional information from Shane:

• He's added 20% to the time and cost figures he's been given.
• Downtime associated with the project, for whatever alternative is selected, isn't likely to start for at least a year, and it could be spring of 2009 before work would begin.
• Responding to suggestions that the MTA be asked to tailor its subway work to avoid further inconvenience to Islanders while the Tram is down, Shane said, "RIOC is a peanut in this enterprise. I can send letters and e-mails, but the head of the MTA gets those from every community that wants better service." He said Islanders who want to pressure the MTA should work through their elected representatives, but held out little hope that the Island would get special consideration in the context of the huge demand for transit from Queens to Manhattan that causes rush-hour trains to arrive full at the Island platforms.
• To a woman who expressed doubt that a seven-month schedule could be met, Shane pointed out that the four-and-a-half-month outage occasioned by the April, 2005, episode in which passengers were stuck above the East River was an unplanned outage. He said that with planning, preordering, and prestaging of parts, a planned outage could adhere to a schedule more readily than was possible when RIOC had to order parts on an emergency basis.