Roosevelt Island ended last week with a transportation crisis brewing.  As of late Friday night, RIOC staff members were set to sign over the Tramway to Columbia Pictures most of Tuesday through Saturday or Sunday.

By Monday night, as residents gathered for a Town Meeting hastily called by Residents Association (RIRA) President Matthew Katz, parents concerned over transportation of their children were ready to go on the attack with questions and criticisms of everything about the plan, which would have taken the cable car out of service from noon on each day.

Two representatives of RIOC President Robert Ryan appeared at the Town Meeting to take the heat and respond.  Vice President Robert Antonek and Brad Harlan, who identified himself as responsible for most of the contacts with the moviemaker, took notes and promised to try to find solutions to the problems residents presented.

After hearing that RIOC had been talking with the production company for some eight months, resident Robert Battles targeted the two with his frustration and ire:

"So yesterday the Island is alerted to this profound difficulty...  Why was the answer 'yes' instead of 'no'?  For money?  For some extra cash to offset the deficit for the Tram?  See, that's not a good enough answer."  (Antonek had said RIOC would realize "over $100,000" for the use of the Tram.)  Ridiculing an Antonek offer to try to add an additional red bus to transport schoolchildren from 59th Street and Second Avenue to the Island, Battles continued, "If we're just doing it for the check, and will try to put on another red bus, so that if my kids miss one bus, they'll get home an hour and a half later... that's just a crummy answer.  If we're doing this for a check, then it's not worth doing...  I don't believe that a couple of days' notice for a situation that throws the Island into turmoil for a check from Columbia Pictures is worth it.  It makes no sense to me at all.  If they need this Tram so badly to make this movie, which will net a few tens of millions of dollars, then there should be enough time to give us what we need, which is safe transportation in the afternoon and in the morning for our kids and for anybody else who needs the Tram."

Antonek attempted to explain:  "Up until Friday at noon the plan was for the Tram to be shut down from 6:30 in the evening to 6:30 in the morning, which would provide all the schoolchildren with transportation...  Then, at noon, they presented us with a problem."  The film people, he said, had been planning to rig one stationary Tram cabin for shooting while the other cabin shuttled passengers back and forth.  "They didn't realize it's a clothesline," Antonek said.

Battles shot back, to lusty applause:  "Then at noon, the answer is no.  Why is Columbia Pictures my problem?  Columbia Pictures is in the business of making movies.  We're in the business of getting our kids to and from school.  My problem is not making their movie.  That's their problem.  They need to deal with what we need... we're not going to have to work around them... for a check?  It's ridiculous.  I just think that you've got to go back to Columbia and say, 'This is the way it's going to be.  The community says...'  It's just ridiculous that Columbia's production problem becomes my problem with a couple of days to prepare for it."  Again, there was applause.

Other parents voiced similar concerns about nine- and ten-year-old offspring accustomed to the independence of Tramway rides for school transportation, but not yet ready to ride the subway alone or, for that matter, to wait the planned one-hour interval between the red bus service RIOC was arranging as an alternative.

Indeed, another parent, Susheel Kurien, told Harlan and Antonek, "You've insulted this community by having no consideration, or even any thought, after being the organization that issues Tram passes to our children.  So you know that there are x number of children on this Island who are regular Tram commuters.  You know that.  After knowing that, you insulted us by making a whole bunch of working families here learn on Sunday night that they have to change the arrangements for their children overnight."

While others raised questions about seniors possibly having to stand for an hour or more to wait for a red bus, former RIRA Common Council member Debra Mount Cornet countered Antonek's assertion that use of the Tram in the movie would have public relations value:  "You have apparently put the concerns of Columbia Pictures ahead of the concerns of these children...  You want to talk about public relations?  I'd like to suggest a public relations nightmare:  A children's movie - about a superhero - that endangers the lives of children."  She continued with a specific request:  "Can you go back and say you want that Tram operating from 3:00 to 5:00 or 6:00 so that these children are safely brought to and from school?"

Antonek said he believed "that would not be possible," but promised to speak with the production staff to see what might be done.

Joan Christianson, former RIRA Vice President and a current member of the RIRA Common Council, told Antonek and Harlan that a notice posted on Island kiosks was "an insult."  She pointed out that some residents don't even pass kiosks until they leave their apartments to use the Tram for a trip to Manhattan for medical treatment, not having allowed the extra time necessary for the bus ride to Manhattan.  Christianson said a door-drop notice should have been arranged.  She added, "We can organize a protest tomorrow morning and make you people look like fools.  I don't think you want that, either.  ...  I don't think anybody in that [RIOC] office understands that this Island is a family, and we look out for each other, and you just have total disregard for that, and I find that an insult."

By Tuesday noon, RIOC had addressed the problems outlined by residents by cutting the hours of Tram unavailability so that movie use would start at 4:00 p.m. rather than noon.  The number of days was also cut from five or six to three (Tuesday through Thursday), and extra bus service was arranged in an attempt to increase service frequency to every half-hour.  But some residents expressed frustration with the bus scheduling, citing delays and a lack of reliable information on length of delays.

At a Wednesday night meeting of the RIRA Common Council, building representatives expressed their continuing anger over RIOC's conduct, despite the changes in arrangements.  Deirdre Breslin told her fellow Common Council members that she was not satisfied with any of the changed arrangements for transportation, calling the attitudes of Antonek and Harlan at the Town Meeting "disgraceful."  Shouting, she added, "We should be up in arms."

Throughout the week, two themes sounded repeatedly by residents were poor communication by RIOC, and the corporation's failure to consult residents.  Indeed, RIOC Board member David Kraut responded to an exchange of e-mails about the situation by telling residents that not even RIOC Board members knew anything about the Spiderman plan until well after RIOC was fully committed to the project.  Kraut also told residents that RIOC Board Chair Mary Beth Labate had worked on the problem by telephone from Albany virtually all day Monday.  Katz, on the other hand, criticized Labate and RIOC President Ryan for not giving him a "heads-up" in a face-to-face meeting just days before the matter started assuming a crisis status (see The RIRA Column).