RIPTA Board Members Don’t Understand the Impacts of Their Cuts: Guest MINDSETTER™ Joe Cole

RIPTA Board Members Don’t Understand the Impacts of Their Cuts: Guest MINDSETTER™ Joe Cole

RIPTA board members voted on cutting service last month; unfortunately, they didn’t realize, or didn’t care about, the consequences of their actions.

Only one board member that I know actually rides a bus. Board chairman Peter Alviti strong-armed the meeting and should be held accountable as a result of his conflict of interest. While RIDOT has always sat on the board, two years ago, he was installed as the Chairman.

Previous to Route 69, the URI Route 66 ran a complete route from Providence to Galilee. It was separated to provide a better on-time performance. Unfortunately, passengers will not feel the impact of weekend service not being available until it doesn’t show up on the street. 

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As the Fall schedule approaches and will go into effect September 27 for RIPTA’s 69 line, all services for weekends - Saturday/Sunday from the URI campus to Peacedale, Wakefield, the Salt Pond Plaza in Narragansett, terminating at the Block Island Ferry in Galilee - will be eliminated. The "Ocean State" will have no weekend service to the water, no matter the season.

RIPTA did have public meetings on this issue. Unfortunately, no one is paying attention to what’s happening. Your weekend service is cancelled.

In Johnston, Route 28 - the Hartford Avenue bus currently terminates in the Stop & Shop plaza on Atwood Avenue - will change to Job Lot and Planet Fitness. This will cause traffic congestion at Atwood Ave across from the new plaza next to Town Hall and congestion in the parking lot.

Having the bus go to Amazon every trip will not only help with revenue for RIPTA, but will give more flexibility to people to go to Price Rite and the employees who work at Amazon. RIPTA runs trips to Amazon for workers' shift changes. But when they work an hour before or after a shift (overtime) or want flexibility to come and go as they please, there’s no transportation.

The State, along with Johnston and Amazon, invested a lot of money to build this project and Amazon built a new lay-off area for the buses to accommodate the bus service (and Amazon is also paying $90,000 for buses now). Workers that need to get to work without the bus walk from the CVS or Uber to work.

Unless the state provides substantive funding, RIPTA will continue each year falling short on revenue sources, and passengers will continue to be threatened each year on losing their lifeline. Public transportation across the country is losing ground in funding at both federal and state levels.

Taxpayers in Rhode Island pay for public transportation just as they pay for police, firefighters, public schools (even when they have no children attending) and even trash pick-ups. While you might not need it today, you will in the future.  

Public transportation is not about making money. It's a necessity to maintain a stable lifestyle.

Please make every effort to avoid this from happening. Contact the Governor and RIPTA CEO Chris Durand and let them know how you feel. 

Joseph Cole an advocate for public transportation and a 40 year employee of RIPTA.