Roosevelt Island residents will gather at the Manhattan Tram Station 3 PM on Sunday June 8 to the Reclaiming The Tram Rally In Support of Priority Boarding for Roosevelt Island residents and workers organized by the TramIsTransit group.
According to TramIsTransit, a campaign organized by Paul Krikler and Amy Namdar, among others:
Our rally is Sunday, June 8 at 3 PM, on the Manhattan side of the tram.
It’s so important that we come together as a community to show our strength! Invite your family, friends, neighbors, and kids—everyone is welcome. The more voices we have, the stronger our message!
… according to an opinion drafted by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) legal department, a residents/workers Tram boarding preference would be illegal….
… Others have disputed RIOC’S legal opinion. RIOC refuses to make the full legal opinion public.
Can a solution be found that overcomes RIOC’s purported legal obstacle for providing priority Roosevelt Island Tram boarding to those who use the Tram for essential transportation purposes before those using the Tram as an amusement sightseeing attraction?
How about this?
RIOC sets up a permitting system to issue an annual Roosevelt Island Fast Line Pass that is available to everyone, resident, worker or visitor. The Fast Line Pass must be picked up in person on Roosevelt Island at least 24 hours before it can be used.
The Fast Line Pass allows the holder to board the Tram before a person who does not have a Fast Line Pass. A person who only rides the Tram as a one time sightseeing attraction is less likely to obtain the Fast Line Pass than a regular user of the Tram.
Logistics would need to be figured out for how the Fast Line Pass would work in practice, but the bottom line is that Roosevelt Island residents, workers and anyone else who uses the Roosevelt Island Tram for transportation purposes will have priority boarding over those using it for one time sightseeing amusement attraction….
During the May 14, 2025 Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Board of Directors meeting Public Session, RIOC Deputy General Counsel Lada Stasko repeated the RIOC position that any preferential Tram boarding preference for residents and workers would be illegal and RIOC does not have the authority to create such a preference.
RIOC Board Chair designee Megan Anderson added that (21 minute 5 second mark):
… The perceived preference of someone getting a pass is still a preference and that’s the problem. It’s perceived and anybody can complain that somebody got on ahead of me on public transportation just because they have a little card. The statute says what it says and we cannot provide a preference to anyone regardless of their residential status….
So, according to RIOC, a Fast Pass available to everybody is still an illegal discrimination, because someone might not have one even though it is available to them.
The NYC Ferry to Rockaway Beach is a form of public transportation which has resumed the summer reservation system on weekends for riders to avoid long lines which, according to RIOC’s reasoning, discriminates against riders who don’t have reservations. Yet, the public transportation Rockaway Beach Ferry reservation system is legal.
A Fast Pass for the Tram to be picked up on Roosevelt Island and available to everybody is our version of the Rockaway Ferry reservation system.
UPDATE 6/7 – PIX Channel 11 News did a story last night on the Tram ovecrowding and tomorrow’s Reclaiming The Protest Rally.
I think the Fast Pass is an excellent idea.
The fast pass is long overdue but the system for issuance needs refinement. For those of us that work and use the tram for school transport multiple times a day, this is not practical to pick it up 24 hrs before use daily. What’s more efficient is issuing
/showing an RI resident identifier or have tourists pre-register for sightseeing. Better, charge them a tourist pass. In countries I have visited similar systems are in place where the residents/workers are prioritized. Tourists are important for the economy but without the workers and students keeping the city economy running, there is no economy.