The General Assembly session is over, and it’s bad news for riders. While the General Assembly leadership deserves credit for giving RIPTA $15 million and, importantly, ensuring that this level of funding is sustainable and will be available to RIPTA year after year, this is not enough to overcome McKee’s budget that grossly underfunded RIPTA. 

Instead the governor used the lack of completion of an efficiency study of RIPTA as a reason not to give RIPTA full funding. Now some of those results are available. They show that RIPTA’s average operational costs compare favorably to other agencies. It also found RIPTA has lower administrative costs than other systems. The study identified only a few “efficiencies” that RIPTA might make. And RIPTA’s budget would still be in the red even if they implemented all the efficiencies, showing that there actually weren’t many efficiencies to be made.

Lawmakers now have seen the predictions of what the austerity budget does to RIPTA. The predictions were widely reported in the news. At least 90 jobs would be lost and 20% of RIPTA service cut. Entire lines would have to be cut, hours and frequency cuts on other routes and good union jobs lost. Rural service will likely be disproportionately harmed. But people across the state may not be able to get to jobs or to shop. Fewer people will be able to access needed medical and social services.

This austerity attitude towards RIPTA comes, ironically, as things at RIPTA are going very well. Under the leadership of CEO Chris Durand, drivers received raises and the number of skipped trips declined. Frequency and reliability are well known components of increasing the use of public transit. Durand has also overseen innovative ways to increase ridership, such as timely service to Amazon’s facility to match shifts and getting major employers like Omni Hotel and Miriam Hospital on the Wave to Work program that benefits their workers. Under his leadership RIPTA is running a pilot of a Summer Youth Pass Program for teens, enabling them to get to summer jobs and programs at a discount, entirely grant-funded.

Senator Sam Zurier led a last-minute attempt to increase RIPTA’s funding. We are grateful to the senators who voted for Zuirer’s amendment. It received bipartisan support and came close to passing. We appreciate the sustainable funding offered by General Assembly leadership. But it is not enough to prevent service cuts and job losses. It’s time to stop playing politics with people’s lives and livelihoods, using the efficiency study timeline as an excuse not to fully fund RIPTA, when plenty of evidence from study drafts shows that RIPTA is run well.

Amy Joy Glidden

Chair, RI Transit Riders