August 27th, 2025

Governor McKee’s half-hearted attempt at averting the worst of the proposed RIPTA cuts is weak and dismaying. The Governor precipitated this funding crisis by not taking seriously the state’s dependence on public transit. He could have funded transit in his budget last winter, to the good of all of us, as well as the 40,000 people who ride the bus every day, but he did not. While we are pleased that he has late come to the realization that the cuts his budget demanded are too high a cost to stand, we deplore the fact that he waited to the last minute and even now proposes what is not even a half-measure.

And not only is his offer really nothing more than an accounting gimmick to ward off the worst by sacrificing investment in buses, he still wants to saddle the agency with a costly construction project that riders do not want or need. The idea that we need to build a shiny new terminal for a bus system the Governor and Assembly refuse to fund adequately would be laughable were the stakes not so high. Public transit is not only a vital public service to be preserved, its growth is essential to meeting the climate goals that the state promised to meet back in 2021. Neither preservation nor growth will happen on a starvation diet.

Efficient and effective public transit is an indispensable part of the most successful local economies around the country. Rhode Island is dense enough to support great transit. We could take advantage of that to build a system equal to the best in the nation. What is needed is not merely the budgetary spare change necessary to pull RIPTA out of its funding crisis, but the vision and imagination to see that the agency could be so much more than it is, and with only modest investment provide fast, green, and efficient transportation to all of our small state.

Sincerely,

Amy Joy Glidden, Chair, RI Transit Riders

RITR’s statement was featured in GoLocalProv on August 28, 2025