Facing a big budget deficit and high fuel prices, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority's board of directors approved service reductions for 47 of the state's bus routes this week.
The service reductions are "much more minor" than originally proposed, according to Mark Therrien, RIPTA's assistant general manager. Along with the elimination of 20 drivers, the cuts, approved on Monday, should save RIPTA $900,000 by the end of the current fiscal year in June, he said.
But the reductions will come nowhere close to addressing the authority's estimated $8 million deficit, and RIPTA officials said more dramatic action must be taken by January. "In the end, it's left up to the governor and the legislature," Therrien said.
RIPTA held public hearings as late as Oct. 7 on its original proposal for $12 million in service reductions and the elimination of 140 jobs, but Monday's reduction represents a dramatically scaled-down version of that proposal, calling for a reduction of only $1.8 to $2 million. The original proposal was amended following a request from Gov. Donald Carcieri '65 that RIPTA take no dramatic action until the state legislature reconvenes in January, Therrien said.
Only one bus route, no. 24 "West Bay Shopper," servicing a senior citizen home once a week, will be completely eliminated. The rest will see either a decrease in bus frequency or fewer hours of operation.
"We are not abandoning communities," Therrien said. "No area will be left out in the cold."
RIPTA officials reviewed over 8,500 trips to gauge ridership and instanced of overcrowding, Therrien said. Route reductions were chosen if data showed a recent decrease in ridership.
Yet RIPTA's announcement Monday that it could cut service "came out of left field," said Vale Cofer-Shabica '09, a member of Students for a Democratic Society. RIPTA board members, he said, had repeatedly emphasized in meetings with SDS members that no service cuts would be made until January.
Since a hike in fares this summer, the activist student group has made public transit a priority, storming a meeting of RIPTA's board in September and causing it to adjourn early. Cofer-Shabica attributed RIPTA's deficit to the "roundabout way" in which public transportation is funded in the state, saying Rhode Island has the money but chooses not to prioritize public transportation in its budget.
RIPTA's eight-member board of directors "doesn't have the backbone to go to the General Assembly and demand funding," he said.
RIPTA is a quasi-public authority, receiving 40 percent of its annual funding from the state, said Robert Shawver, associate chief engineer for capital programming at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation.
This state funding comes mostly from gas tax revenues, which have fallen in recent months. The budget deficits are largely the result of the high price of diesel fuel used by the buses, Therrien said. RIPTA's budget is based on an average price of $2.60 per gallon of diesel, but the yearly average so far has been $3.30, he said.
The Blue Ribbon Panel on Transportation Funding, created by Carcieri and co-chaired by State Director of Administration Jerome Williams, has been working since March to find a solution to the state's transportation woes - and RIPTA is not the only source of worry.
The DOT is looking to raise $300 million to fund much-needed infrastructure improvements for the state's roads and bridges, which are deteriorating after years of neglect, the Providence Journal reported Nov. 15.
"The DOT is so underfunded - we can only do what we can do," Shawver said.
Williams stressed the dual importance of both maintaining infrastructure and supporting public transportation. "RIPTA buses have to drive on the roads ... over the bridges," he said.
In the meantime, the Blue Ribbon Panel is discussing alternative ideas for covering the deficit. The members will present their final proposal to the governor Dec. 4.
A separate group is looking into ways RIPTA can reduce its expenses and raise revenues, Williams said. One of his proposals is a five-cent increase in the gas tax, which he said would raise enough money to cover the authority's deficit this year. But he said he does not know if there is enough support in the state legislature to pass it.
Cofer-Shabica said such a gas tax was a "really silly idea" that made "no economic sense." An increase in the price of gas would only result in a decrease in gas purchases and thus a decrease in state tax revenue, he said.
But Williams said he hopes to avoid the originally proposed 20 percent reductions in any way possible, especially when high ridership and an economic downturn mean an increased need for public transportation. Many proposals are on the table but no concrete action can be taken until January.
A state transportation bond passed on election day this month will allocate more than $3.6 million to RIPTA for the purchase and rehabilitation of buses.
