On any average day, visitors to Kennedy Plaza are met with a stream of office workers rushing out of nearby buildings, packs of students carrying backpacks and the occasional travelers dragging around their suitcases.
At Providence’s largest transit center, dozens of people wait for the bus to take them throughout Rhode Island. But starting Sept. 27, many of them will be waiting much longer to catch their bus.
On Aug. 25, Gov. Dan McKee and Rhode Island Public Transport Authority CEO Christopher Durand announced a new budget framework aiming to reduce the agency’s $32.6 million operational deficit. To meet these goals, RIPTA will reduce service along 45 bus routes, Cristy Raposo Perry, a RIPTA spokesperson, wrote in an email to The Herald.
The new plan includes “targeted service reductions informed by demand data,” McKee wrote in a letter to RIPTA’s board of directors. In late July, RIPTA proposed to eliminate 11 full bus routes and significantly reduce service on several others. Between July 28 and Aug. 6, the agency held 12 public hearings across the state on the proposed service reductions and eliminations.
“The hearings had record attendance,” said Amy Glidden, co-chair of Rhode Island Transit Riders, a public transport advocacy group. “I’ve attended these hearings over the years, and I’ve never seen such a large crowd as the one I saw at the Providence evening session.”
Hannah Galan Johnsen, the co-owner of Pothos Plant Shop on Ives Street, testified at one of the hearings.
There was “no seating left, people were standing in the aisles, and there was even a full overflow room,” she said. “I was overwhelmed in a very positive way to see how our community members showed up for everyone.”
RIPTA’s goal is to “to close the deficit and preserve as much service as possible for Rhode Islanders who rely most on public transit,” Raposo Perry wrote in an email to The Herald.
After receiving feedback from the hearings, RIPTA has proposed to decrease the frequency of over two-thirds of routes instead of fully eliminating any routes. Some lines will change from service every 60 minutes to every 90 minutes and others will have weekend service eliminated.
These service reductions are budgeted to save RIPTA $4.4 million towards their budget deficit, according to Raposo Perry.
But many Rhode Islanders who rely on the RIPTA told The Herald that these service reductions will still have a significant impact on their everyday lives.
Glidden said that while RIPTA’s new plan aims to limit the impact of its service reductions, the agency is “still doing service reductions on 45 out of 67 routes.”
She called the situation a “pyrrhic victory” — a Roman battle in which “the losses that were sustained were so severe, it’s like you didn’t win,” Glidden explained. Even though no routes were completely eliminated, the service reductions will still “devastate the system,” she added.
Galan Johnsen is also worried about how the RIPTA service reductions will affect small businesses and their communities.
The reductions will reduce the flow of business traffic and visibility, she told The Herald, adding that RIPTA is particularly important to Pothos Plant Shop because a bus stop along Route 92 is very close to their store. RIPTA currently plans to reduce Route 92’s Sunday frequency from every 30 minutes to every 45 minutes
Galan Johnsen is “concerned for … people who can’t get to their jobs on time because of the weekend service cuts and people who can’t get to their doctor's office.”
Her store now offers a promotion where customers can get a free plant propagation if they call McKee to oppose RIPTA’s service cuts.
“A lot of people have called without actually taking us up on the cutting,” she said. “It’s been a really great way to increase awareness on the issue.
“I take the RIPTA bus home,” she added, often riding Route 33 home to East Providence. “As a RIPTA rider myself it’s the least I could do.”
Pavani Durbhakula is a senior staff writer and photographer. She is a first-year from DC and plans to study IAPA and Public Health. In her free time, she enjoys baking, reading, and searching for new coffee shops.
