By Jared Ebersole in Video — 18 Jun 2026

Why New Yorkers Still Commute on a Ski Lift

The Roosevelt Island Tram was supposed to be temporary, but a delayed subway, a dramatic rescue, and a full rebuild turned it into a permanent New York commute.

New Yorkers commute by subway, bus, ferry, bike, car, foot, and occasionally by what looks like a ski lift over the East River.

The Roosevelt Island Tram feels like a tourist attraction because it gives you one of the cleanest aerial views in the city. But it was not built as a novelty ride. It was built because a new neighborhood was stranded by a transit promise that arrived 13 years late.

Where to ride it

Manhattan station: 59th Street and Second Avenue. Roosevelt Island station: Tramway Plaza, near Main Street

Before the tram, Roosevelt Island had an access problem. The island had a small bridge to Queens, but that did not solve the basic daily question for residents who needed Manhattan. To go west, you first had to go east, then double back through Queens or over another crossing. For a place only about 800 feet from Manhattan at its narrowest practical crossing, the trip could feel absurdly indirect.

That mattered because Roosevelt Island was being remade in the 1970s as a planned residential community. Apartments, schools, parks, and services were supposed to form a quieter alternative to the rest of Manhattan. The sales pitch depended on one essential piece of infrastructure: a subway stop on the 63rd Street line.

The subway did not arrive on time.

So New York improvised in a very un-New York way: it bought aerial tramway technology more commonly associated with mountains.

The Roosevelt Island Tram opened on May 17, 1976. It was the first commuter aerial tramway in the United States, connecting the island directly to the Upper East Side. It was supposed to be a stopgap until the subway was complete. Instead, the F train did not reach Roosevelt Island until 1989.

By then, the temporary fix had become part of the city.

The tram was faster, scenic, accessible, and emotionally useful in a city whose underground commutes are often defined by stairs, tunnels, and delay boards. It also gave Roosevelt Island a front door that felt distinct. The subway made the island more connected, but the tram made it recognizable.

Then the temporary system showed its age.

The original tram used two cabins tied to the same cable loop. The arrangement was efficient in a classic aerial-tramway way: as one cabin moved down, it helped counterbalance the other moving up. But the same relationship also meant the two cabins were mechanically linked. If the system had a major problem, both cabins could be trapped.

On April 18, 2006, that is what happened. A power failure stopped the tram over the East River, leaving 69 people stranded in two cabins. Rescue crews spent hours transferring passengers by basket, one by one, hundreds of feet in the air. Contemporary New York Times coverage described a dramatic midair evacuation that lasted into the night.

The incident did not end the tram. It forced a rebuild.

In 2010, the system shut down for a major modernization. The old shared-loop arrangement was replaced by a dual-haul system. Each cabin got its own ropes and drive machinery, allowing the two sides to operate independently. That changed the tram from a charming old workaround into a more resilient piece of transit infrastructure.

The rebuilt tram reopened in November 2010. Today it uses the city's normal fare system, accepts MetroCard and OMNY, and carries more than 2 million riders a year. It is both commute and attraction, utility and postcard, redundancy and symbol.

That dual identity is why it survived.

If the tram had only been a temporary shuttle, the subway might have killed it. If it had only been a tourist ride, residents might have rejected it as decoration. Instead, it became one of those rare New York systems that is useful and beautiful at the same time.

The strangest part is that the original promise failed.

The subway delay forced the city to improvise. The improvisation worked too well to remove. The failure in 2006 exposed a flaw serious enough to require a rebuild, and the rebuild made the temporary fix stronger than before.

In May 2026, the tram turned 50.

Not bad for a stopgap.