In 1976, New York suspended a tram over the East River because another subway tunnel was too expensive; the Roosevelt Island Tram still links the island to Manhattan

Imagine New York City in the early 1970s: nearly broke, with a new subway tunnel stalled for years underground and new residents on a narrow East River island lacking a good way to reach Manhattan. So, the state decided to build a ski-lift-style cable car over the river. An assessment was commissioned in 1979 by the U.S. Urban Mass Transportation Administration to evaluate the Roosevelt Island Tramway, as one of the first urban transit systems in the country built on aerial cableway technology, drawing on site visits, interviews, and several years of early operating records. Now, in 2026, the "temporary" tram turns 50, and it is still running.

A subway that took forever to arrive

Roosevelt Island was not always the quiet, apartment-lined area it is today. For much of the twentieth century, it was known as Welfare Island and was largely made up of hospitals and asylums. It was in the late 1960s that New York State began planning to develop the island into a new town with mixed incomes right in the middle of the East River. That plan needed a dependable way to move people into Manhattan.


The obvious solution was the 63rd Street subway line that had already begun construction way back in 1969. However, its completion took decades due to the financial crisis in the mid-1970s. The upper section of the tunnel opened only in October 1989, two decades after its construction started. In the meantime, the first inhabitants of the island already settled there in mid-1975 without any subway lines and only a roundabout bus route through Queens to reach the city.

Why a cable car

City planners had considered a ferry, an elevator off the side of the Queensboro Bridge and an aerial tramway. The ferry was ruled out because it was too expensive to run on a daily basis and did not offer an easy connection to trains or buses. The tramway won out for a simpler reason: it was quick to build and far less expensive than anything requiring new tunnels or major construction. It was designed by chief engineer David Ozerkis with structural engineer Lev Zetlin as part of the team, and was only intended as a stopgap measure until the subway came. The "temporary" tram opened on May 17, 1976. It was built by Swiss manufacturer Von Roll at a cost of about $6.8 million. It ran free on opening day and cost 50 cents a ride afterward. By its first anniversary, it had already carried 1.25 million passengers.

When "temporary" became permanent

The tram survived, even with the opening of the subway in 1989. When the F train became an option for residents, ridership did drop, with the tram’s weekly ridership falling from about 35,000 to 20,000 within a month of the subway’s opening. But islanders put up a strong fight when officials suggested closing it. Others said the tram offered better access for wheelchairs and more connections to Manhattan buses than the subway. A petition to keep it running drew about 2,000 signatures, and it stayed.

That resistance did matter. The tram survived a number of power failures and insurance crises over the years, and a roughly $25 million rebuild, planned and funded between 2007 and 2010, with the tram itself shut down for construction from March to November 2010, that replaced just about every part of the system save its three tower bases. It now accepts MetroCard and OMNY, like the subway and buses, and carries just over two million riders in a typical year.

A tiny piece of a much bigger transit story

The Roosevelt Island Tramway turned out to be more than just a four-minute ride. A 2012 study, ‘Aerial Ropeway Transportation Systems in the Urban Environment: State of the Art,’ published in the Journal of Transportation Engineering, describes how cities around the world have turned to aerial cable systems to cross mountains, valleys, and bodies of water that conventional transit modes cannot overcome without very large investment. It was roughly the same logic that led New York to adopt a tram instead of waiting for the subway extension in the 1970s. That broader case for cable transit then went on to influence systems built in cities such as Medellín and Portland.

The planning legacy of the island itself offers much explanation as to why the tram is so well suited to the neighborhood. Roosevelt Island was the brainchild of urban planner Ed Logue, director of the New York State Urban Development Corporation during the 1970s. As described in an in-depth account of the era, based on research carried out by historian Lizabeth Cohen and presented by the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, Logue saw the design of the tram as a part of his integrated development plan for an isolated car-less community in the middle of the river.

Why the tram still matters today

The tram, for many riders, might be nothing but an amazing four-minute $3 skyline ride that costs as much as the subway. Yet, when it comes to the history of the tram, this topic turns into a genuine case of urban planning where, when the proper and more expensive solution didn't work, the cheaper alternative came to rescue and lived long past its expiration date. New York probably did not expect that the cable car would last so long. However, fifty years later, it remains one of the city's most distinctive three-dollar views.