Monday was a very good day.  The sun shone, the air was dry and in the 60s, and the MetroCard system came to the Roosevelt Island Tram.

In my February 23, 2002, WIRE column, I mentioned our 1999 efforts to convince E. Virgil Conway, then MTA Chairman, that incorporating the Tram into the MetroCard system was already five years overdue.  I wrote, “…he treated it like a month-old fish, something stinking to be quickly discarded.”  I then described my visit that week to the Transit Riders Council, 2002 President’s Forum where I received NYCTA President Larry Reuter’s enthusiastic endorsement of the project.  That very evening, I brought a report of Mr. Reuter’s support to the RIOC Board of Directors where, “RIOC Board member Leo Kayser suggested that yours truly set up a meeting to include myself and the presidents of RIOC and NYCTA.”

Well, in fact, there were many meetings.  President Ryan met with President Reuter.  Working meetings were held between RIOC CFO (and later, acting president) Pat Siconolfi and his team and TA MetroCard VP Tom Savage and his group.  Slowly, the thrust of the meetings changed from, “can we do this difficult thing?” to “how can we do this difficult thing?”  The sticking points between these two public benefit corporations were essentially twofold: who would pay for the installation and who would get the benefit of each fare through a revenue-sharing scenario.  My role was to convene, to offer comment from the residents’ perspective, and to worry and obsess.

And then, the meetings stopped.  As I reported in these pages, the question had been kicked to a higher level.  And the result, these many months later, is the retirement of the New York City transit token and the inclusion of the Roosevelt Island Tram into the Big Apple commuter transit net and the twenty-first century.

First, I want to thank Lawrence Reuter and Leo Kayser for kick-starting the process.  Kudos to the RIOC presidents, culminating with Herb Berman, on whose watches the work was done and for moving the process forward.  I want to thank Pat Siconolfi and Tom Savage for crunching the numbers.  I want to thank Dan Quart and the Community Board 8 Transportation Committee for supporting our efforts with a unanimously passed resolution.  I want to thank all the elected officials and others who quietly worked behind the scenes to make New York City, New York State, and two public benefit corporations all move in the same direction at the same time.

And finally, I want to thank City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who produced the extraordinary compromises, brilliant solutions, and scarce dollars that paid to install the card readers and vending machines, and that will subsidize RIOC’s loss of fare revenue to the tune of $1 million a year for the next five years.  That’s right, boys and girls, RIOC will receive the fares from any use of the Tram, both coming and going, while the money Gifford provided will reimburse the MTA for their loss.

I was proud to stand with Herb and Gifford and with MTA Chair Peter Kalikow and NYCTA president Reuter at last Monday’s press conference.  I had been at our Tram station at 7:30 that morning to watch the first commuters use their MetroCards and to marvel at how well the brand-new system worked.  Sure, there were some glitches with kids’ Tram passes, but most of the riders – young and old – sailed through.  I couldn’t help recalling how I told myself not to be too disappointed as the months of waiting rolled by, and now, silently “kvelling” at the successful conclusion of a two-year odyssey.

Two years and fourteen days ago (but who’s counting) I suggested to Larry Reuter that this was “an idea whose time had come.”  In my heart of hearts I truly thought that getting the MetroCard was a low-probability project, worth pursuing but unlikely of success.  At Monday’s press conference at the Manhattan-side Tram station, Mr. Reuter – clearly an optimist at heart – got to tell me “I told you so.”  I don’t remember ever being so grateful to be wrong.