The RIOC executive staff and resident members of the RIOC Board met tonight (Thursday, January 17) with residents to discuss the extended Tramway outage and substitute bus service.

In the 90-minute meeting at the Chapel of the Good Shepherd:

• RIOC President Robert H. Ryan offered an excuse for the short-cutting of the Tram’s haul cable by eight feet, calling it an error of “one quarter of one percent” in a cable 3,510 feet long.
   
• Ryan said that American Tramways, the contractor operating the Tramway and doing the current refurbishing work, had admitted “full responsibility” for the error in cutting the cable short, but stopped short of reassuring residents that American Tramways would pay for a replacement cable if an alternative cable-attachment system were disapproved by the State Department of Labor.  He said the current focus is on getting the Tram back in service as soon as possible.
   

• Anticipating criticism for taking the Tram out of service in winter, Ryan ran through a chronology, saying that American Tramways discovered a need for haul-cable replacement shortly after taking over the Tramway last summer, that the cable was ordered but required a three-month manufacturing period, and was ready to be installed just after Thanksgiving.  When the cable was cut short, the target date of December 20 for returning the Tram to service could not be met.
   
• Ryan criticized the Tramway employees’ union for failing to get back to RIOC about ways to assist the 20-some Tramway staffers, who were laid off by American Tramways four days before Christmas.  He said RIOC is prepared “to do everything possible” to help the idled work force, but need to hear from the union officials.
   
• Tramway employee Gregg Paravati pointed out that in his 26 years as a Tramway employee, there have never been lay-offs as a result of maintenance glitches.  He cited three instances of periods up to three months in which the Tramway was out of service, but employees were kept on.  “This time, why are we laid off?” he asked.
   

Read Robert Laux-Bachand's extended report on the Tramway outage from The Main Street WIRE, January 12 – how it happened and what happens next

• Other Tramway employees addressed the meeting, moderated by resident RIOC Board member David Kraut.  Picking up on Paravati’s comments, another employee, Robert Kelly, pointed out that in the past, when one company ran the Tram and hired another to do maintenance work, if there was a problem, workers were not laid off.  He said that in the present arrangement, with American Tramways operating the Tram and performing the maintenance work, there is no one holding the company accountable for mistakes, and employees have been laid off.  He called the present arrangement a “conflict of interest” – having the same company operating and maintaining the system – and residents expressed agreement by applauding.
   
• One resident, referring to Tramway employees as “part of our family,” expressed a concern that the workers might seek other employment if out of work long, and that experienced operators would be lost.  That comment was applauded.  Residents Association First Vice President Byron Gaspard urged that RIOC work with American Tramways to find a way to compensate the Tramway staff.
   
• RIOC Chief Financial Officer Patrick Siconolfi told residents and the Tramway employees at the meeting that RIOC is attempting to expedite payments of vacation time and severance due from the Tram’s last operator, Intefac, which Ryan referred to as “an office cleaning company.”  Siconolfi said that RIOC may make direct payments to the employees as a way of helping them through whatever period of unemployment they face.
   


 

• Ryan told residents that if an alternative attachment method is approved by the State Department of Labor, the Tram should be back in operation by about mid-February.  If it isn’t approved, a new cable will have to be ordered, and its manufacture in Europe will take some three months.  In that case, the Tram would be out until mid-April or later.
   
• Ryan compared “rumors“ he had heard, second- hand, about wheelchair-bound Islanders being left to wait another hour for a bus ride at the Manhattan side, to the child’s game of “telephone,” in which a message gets distorted as it passes from one player to another.  Later in the meeting, a resident, Eddie O’Flynn, said he had been present when a wheelchair-bound Goldwater Hospital patient was denied a ride because there was no more space for chairs.  Ryan said it was the first first-hand report he had heard of any such incident.
   
• Ryan and RIOC engineer Vincent Kopicki cited bus ridership figures averaging 30 passengers or less – with some trips running empty – as justification for hourly service each way.  Resident Margaret Sheehan later told the RIOC officials, “It’s disingenuous to say, ’We have a bus that fits 60, but runs with only 30.’  More people will take it if it is really accessible.  If I know that, worst-case, I’ll wait a half-hour, I’m much more likely to use it.“  She added, “We’ve been through this many times since 1976.  At the very least, [you should] run a bus [each way] once every half hour (each way).”
   

• Nancy Brown, who uses a motorized wheelchair with a respirator unit, told the RIOC Board members and staffers, “If you miss the bus, you have to wait 55 minutes.  It’s cold out there.“  Then, she asked, “Can you make it more often?  Like every half hour?”
   
• Residents Association President Matthew Katz read a letter from City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who represents Roosevelt Island.  It called red bus service “woefully inadequate“ and said the one-hour turnaround is “unreasonably long.”  He asked for an increase in bus frequency.
   
• When Ryan told the audience, “We can’t do anything about these matters if we don’t know about them,” at least two residents pointed out that RIOC’s telephone was not answered when they called with reports or complaints.  Ryan said he would have that problem checked out.
   

• Resident Board member Patrick Stewart tried to reassure residents that RIOC does plan to keep the Tram in operation.  “I can tell you absolutely and unequivocally that we would not be spending this amount of money if we were planning to shut it down,“ he said.  “We will soon have three buildings in Southtown that will be occupied by health workers from New York Hospital, Sloan- Kettering, and Rockefeller University, and those residents will require the tram.  We would be fools to shut it down.“  Stewart added, “I personally believe that when Southtown is built, we will have the first profit- making public transportation system in the USA.”
   
• Some residents were critical of RIOC, saying the agency is acting too slowly in putting on additional bus service, too slowly in going after American Tramways for funding for such buses, or too slowly in ordering a replacement cable.  Ryan responded that the meeting was specifically to hear complaints and suggestions from residents on how to improve RIOC’s handling of the situation.

The meeting was well attended, given the short notice and lack of publicity.  Some residents felt greater urgency because of subway problems Wednesday morning.  Because of an accident somewhere in the system, there were train delays, and for a time every train coming through Roosevelt Island was full.  Would-be riders left the station and jammed RIOC’s red buses, but many were left without rides until well after rush hour was over.