Roosevelt Island Tramway description and photos - USA: New York (Topic)

Roosevelt Island Tramway description and photos - USA: New York. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The name in English is Roosevelt Island Tramway.

Photo and Description

Roosevelt Island Cable Car is both a form of public transportation in New York and an entertaining attraction. The townspeople are accustomed to it as to something mundane, the tourist will be delighted with the flight over Manhattan and the East River.

The narrow and long Roosevelt Island is located between Manhattan and Queens. It is crossed by the high Queensboro Bridge, but the problem is that there is no direct exit from the bridge to the island. In the first half of the 20th century, the inhabitants of the island traveled by tram to the middle of the bridge, where they got out and were transferred to the elevator, which brought them to their native land. But in 1957, the tram line running across the bridge was eliminated. Of all the options for organizing passenger traffic with the island, we chose a cable car - for a while, until the metro comes here. But the townspeople are so used to the funicular that it is still in effect, although the island has long had an underground station.

Created in 1976, the cableway runs next to the Queensboro Bridge. She has only two stations: one in Manhattan, the other on Roosevelt Island. Two Italian-made trailers move back and forth along parallel ropes, each of them accommodating up to 110 people.

The trip is somewhat like flying on an airplane (only without noise). The cockpit starts from ground level and begins to climb rather quickly. Not far from the Manhattan coast, the cable car reaches its highest point, 76 meters above the East River. This is not enough to rise above the rooftops of skyscrapers, but the eyes of passengers are presented with an amazing panorama of Manhattan, Queens and the river separating them. This view is especially good in the evening, when the cabin soaring in the sky is surrounded by myriads of lights of a giant city.

The tram of the aerial road slowly crawls at a speed of 28 kilometers per hour, but the journey in one direction takes only three minutes. Each trailer makes 115 trips per day. Since 1976, the cable car has carried more than 26 million passengers.

New Yorkers do not want to abandon the cable car, although accidents do happen here from time to time. The most famous of these occurred in 2006, when 69 passengers were stuck in trailers over the East River due to a power outage. They were evacuated with the help of special rescue baskets, everyone remained alive and well.

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Topic: Roosevelt Island Tramway description and photos - USA: New York.