An out-of-service Rhode Island Public Transit Authority Bus seen stopped on Huntington Avenue in Providence on Aug. 28, 2025. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
The board of directors for Rhode Island’s public transit agency spent the first 90 minutes of its over two-hour meeting Thursday listening to pleas from riders and advocates urging them to delay service reductions across nearly 70% of its bus network.
Members of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s (RIPTA) governing board even expressed empathy for riders as they considered a plan that would take effect Sept. 27.
But they still went ahead with it. The board voted 7-1 to approve the plan, which was released Monday afternoon by Gov. Dan McKee and RIPTA CEO Christopher Durand. The plan calls for reducing service on 46 of its 67 bus lines, primarily impacting weekend and off-peak hours.
But it will avert bus driver layoffs that would have been necessary under a plan originally proposed July 24 to address a $10 million budget deficit. That earlier plan called on the agency to cut or reduce 58 routes.
“We can’t pass an unbalanced budget here,” Chairman Peter Alviti Jr., who also heads the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, said ahead of the vote.
The agency’s board was scheduled to approve those deeper cuts Aug. 7 in order to make up for the $10 million budget deficit, but tabled the decision after McKee sent a last-minute letter asking to hold off until the agency could draft a less severe plan.
The result was the “budget framework” announced Monday when McKee offered $3 million in federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds that RIPTA would later have to pay back. McKee also called on the agency to eliminate 13 vacant administrative positions and look at increasing the bus fare, which has been $2 per trip since 2010.
“Not only does the decision protect core ridership services, but also it prevents future wide-ranging tax increases on Rhode Islanders,” McKee and Durand said in a joint statement Thursday afternoon. “This decision provides a foundation for RIPTA to build a more modern and financially sustainable transit system.”
Though the service reductions are less extensive than what the agency initially considered, advocates argue the plan does little to actually help the agency.
“Make no mistake, the proposed cuts before you right now remain among the largest in RIPTA’s 59-year history,” John Flaherty, senior adviser for Grow Smart RI, told the board. “It will inflict severe hardships on many people, businesses, and institutions while undermining the value of public transit.”
Daniel Blanchette of Pawtucket said he regularly uses the 35 and 76 buses to get to the VETS Auditorium in Providence, where he works as an aisle captain. Under RIPTA’s service plan, the 76 would no longer run on Saturdays and the 35 would not operate on Sundays.
“A lot of our events happen on the weekends in the evenings,” Blanchette said. “How am I going to get to work when those buses are not there and I need them?”
Jeanelle Wheeler, a Providence resident who said she relies on 20 bus routes per month, warned the board that reducing service will only hurt ridership in the long run.
“This proposal is not a victory,” Wheeler said. “Wounding RIPTA wounds all of Rhode Island, our citizens, our economy, and our future.”
Rhode Island Public Transit Authority CEO Christopher Durand, center, and Edward D. Pare III, the board’s counsel, right, listen as riders provides public comment on proposed service reductions before the agency’s board of directors on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
Could the legislature do more?
Only one board member voted against the new plan. Normand Benoit, the panel’s former chairman,said he was leaning toward approving the cuts. But wanted the board to have the option to rescind the vote if McKee were to asks the General Assembly to allocate additional funding for RIPTA in a supplemental budget.
“I think we have tremendous support if the governor puts a supplemental budget up,” Benoit said.
It’s certainly true for Rep. David Morales, a Providence Democrat who petitioned the board Thursday to instead pass a resolution to call for a special session.
“While it’s true RIPTA has been dealt a hard hand of being underfunded this last state budget, I want us to recognize there are still other opportunities that exist to prevent these service cuts,” Morales said.
Rep. Tersa Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, also expressed support for getting additional funding for the agency.
“It’s time that we as a state make the determination as to whether or not we are going to be the provider of predictable public transportation, plain and simple,” she told the board.
Tanzi told reporters after the meeting she texted House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi to commit to more funding for RIPTA. Larry Berman, a spokesperson for Shekarchi’s office, acknowledged a request for comment but did not immediately send a response.
This proposal is not a victory. Wounding RIPTA wounds all of Rhode Island, our citizens, our economy, and our future.
– Jeanelle Wheeler, a Providence resident and RIPTA rider
Board member Patrick Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said he would support holding a special meeting to revise the cuts, but said he doesn’t see a supplemental budget becoming reality.
“If someone in the government gives us the budget to undo [the cuts], sign me up and we’ll get there and undo them,” He said. “[But] one of the frustrating elements of being on a board like this is much of our decision-making processes are determined by other people.
“If every month this gets delayed without some kind of agreement, the agency is going deeper and deeper into deficit,” he continued.
But Alviti called Benoit’s move “improper.”
“We can’t just go back to them as we have historically and say, ‘We just want more money,’” he said. “How has that worked over the last 40 years?”
No other board members seconded Benoit’s motion. McKee’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether the governor would recommend the General Assembly look into a supplemental budget.
After the meeting adjourned, transit advocates booed the board.
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