Is Roosevelt Island Tram Shutdown Really Necessary?

The first item on the Agenda for the Thursday, October 18 meeting of the RIOC Board of Directors is the proposed

Authorization to Proceed with Work Plan for the Modernization of the Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway (Board Action Required)

There was a very interesting discussion regarding the proposed Roosevelt Island Tramway system changes conducted between two RIOC Board members, both Roosevelt Island residents, at the October 11, 2007 Operations Committee meeting that was webcast here.

One of the Board members was not pleased with the way the recent Town Hall meeting on the Future of the Tram was conducted stating that he did not think that

all alternatives were presented with same degree of enthusiasm.

And:

the Board and residents are entitled to see the results of the Thornton Tomasetti study as they were going to present it before it was pre-empted and i'd like to see it on the next Board Agenda.

The same Board member asks in respect to the Tram repairs:

when one of the top 3 engineering firms in the world says there's nothing wrong with anything and somebody else comes back and says everything's wrong with everything and by the way we're not willing to give you any supporting data, why do we choose to believe the second guy when, in fact, they have misled us for several years and we continue to give them business?

A very good question. I hope RIOC has the answer.

Please note that any errors in the description of the statement by the Board member are due to my transcribing them from the webcast and will be corrected if wrong.

Image is from abclocal.go.com