This one literally rises through clouds, parting the mist in a quarter-mile journey that has it emerging dramatically as though materializing from the moisture that saturates the air.  It's hard to imagine a better answer to the problem it addresses.  It is reliable and efficient and, for those unaccustomed to such transport, very different – even thrilling.

Our Roosevelt Island Tramway solves the problem of distance and a considerable water hazard.  This one deals instead with the challenge of altitude, like most of the world's trams.  And like the cable cars in Vancouver and Juneau that we have ridden on this trip from Western Canada up the Alaska panhandle, this one shuttles passengers on a pricey jaunt to and from some attraction:  a restaurant, a ski trail, or the altitude that gives a hang glider the advantage of a high start and mountain updrafts.

All these trams we have seen have this in common with Roosevelt Island's Tramway:  Each is a near-perfect solution to the task for which it was built.  Never mind that out here in the West and North, it is altitude to be conquered, while in New York City it's the somewhat more mundane movement of commuters.

Out here, the tramways surmount heights.

To keep operating, Roosevelt Island's Tramway must surmount a far greater challenge.  In New York, the problem is lack of vision in a myopic pack of bureaucrats who don't see clearly the importance of a New York icon and transportation alternative that is critical to the life of a very special community.

In that sense, our Roosevelt Island Tramway faces a challenge far more formidable than any mere mountain.

LH & DL