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
