TRANSCRIPT:
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Luis Hernandez: Why do you think it’s important for RIPTA to keep the bus hub in Kennedy Plaza?
Randall Rose: Most of all, because Kennedy Plaza is cheaper for the RIPTA system and for the taxpayers, and it’s the most central location. It’s where the bus riders want to go. This is being pushed by a very small number of people who do not have the public interest at heart.
Hernandez: A number of public engagement sessions have been held to solicit feedback about the possible relocation of the downtown bus hub. Do you think RIPTA has done enough to engage members of the public on this process?
Rose: The last time they had serious conversations about engaging the public was at the beginning of 2022. The public would be asked, “Do you want to move the bus hub to a new location, which at the time was Dorrance Street, or do you want to stay in the Kennedy Plaza?” They announced there would be sessions on that. And in the end, these sessions did not even ask the question. And RIPTA was talking about having a rider advisory panel, but that was never set up. They have refused to let the public say and vote “Do you want to stay in Kennedy Plaza or not?”
Hernandez: What are these other locations that are being considered for a new hub?
Rose: The answer to that is very simple. The locations they’re considering are just all the locations that might possibly be on the market, whether they’re good for a bus hub or not. The reason why they’re even talking about moving the hub is because some downtown real estate owners want to get buses away from their buildings. That’s the process.
Hernandez: You know what RIPTA officials have said about moving this hub. They’re saying that riders deserve a modern transit center with state-of-the-art amenities. They’re looking for a location that would include rider safety by providing adequate lighting and fewer streets to cross, as well as a place that could serve as a hub connected to other transit options. How do you respond to that?
Rose: Well, they do claim this is going to be a world-class transit center. They use that term repeatedly — world-class. There’s no reason to believe that. I’ve read the specs that they’ve given for this new transit center. It’s not a world-class transit center. They do say it’s going to be indoors. It’s not going to have as many streets to cross. But these sites are pretty remote from where riders want to go. Some of them are more than half a mile away and you have lots of streets to cross to get from these new sites to where riders want to go. The reason why the state’s main bus hub is in Kennedy Plaza is that it is the prime destination for bus riders. Most bus riders who go to Kennedy Plaza are not there to change to a new bus. They’re there because they want to be in the center of downtown. If you move the hub to one of these new sites, riders are not going to be able to get off where they want to go. They’re going to have to take their bus into the new hub and then transfer to another bus to get to the center of downtown, which is not where they want to be.
Hernandez: Rhode Island State Rep. Enrique Sanchez sponsored a bill this year that would have put a pause on efforts to relocate this hub. That didn’t gain any traction in the legislature. Why not? Where do we go from here?
Rose: The bill was introduced late in the session. Bills that come up late in the session often do not get traction. We are planning to continue this fight for as long as it takes. I think it’s pretty likely that that bill will come up again next year or some other version of it, but it’s a very prudent bill. And what it does is it does not even close the door to exploring a possible alternative bus hub site. It just says that if you’re going to go through the process, you shouldn’t be doing it under the current contract, which is expensive. It doesn’t have the taxpayer’s interest at heart. The current contract is designed so that if this company, Next Wave, ever gets to build a hub, they get a guaranteed profit margin. There’s no cap on their costs. They just get paid whatever they say their costs are plus a guaranteed profit margin, which they were even able to name. That’s not the way to design a contract for a huge amount of money. RIPTA board was told back in December, 2022, they were told that it might be maybe $200 to $250 million for this project — one of the most expensive things in the state, even while the state also has to pay for the Washington Bridge replacements. So it’s a really bad deal. At a very minimum, the deal has to be restructured to listen to riders, to take seriously the cost and evaluate the cost before signing anything permanent. We are going to be working on this more. There’s more time to get support for it next year. We will be making an effort for the rest of this year and next year to stop this process from moving forward. It’s a really terrible idea and we’re going to try to stop it as soon as we can.
Hernandez: RIPTA has been struggling with a serious driver shortage as of late. The starting driver wage was recently increased from just under $22 an hour to over $25 an hour. Randall, do you think that’s going to help attract more drivers?
Rose: Yes, I do think it will attract more drivers, but the main reason why RIPTA has been struggling is RIPTA is not funded enough. So the fact that RIPTA does not have enough funding is the real reason why they can’t attract enough drivers, and if you can’t attract enough drivers, you’re going to have missed buses and service problems. So we just have to make sure; are the politicians going to provide enough funding for the bus system, or are we going to go into election season with the bus system limping along, barely functional, without even doing all the repairs and renovations of Kennedy Plaza that the RIPTA managers want to do? Unfortunately, there has not been enough funding coming through. I know we’re asking for some money for RIPTA, but it’d be a lot less expensive than wasting hundreds of millions on a hub relocation that nobody wants.
Hernandez: You pointed to a couple of things you want to see done, but I’m wondering, what else do you think we have to do to improve public transportation in Rhode Island?
Rose: If you provide enough funding for RIPTA, we can implement what’s called the Transit Master Plan that was developed by RIPTA. It was approved by the State Planning Council. Already, some people move to Rhode Island because we have some public transportation, but if you have a more modern public transportation system, we’d have more people moving into the state. It’d be a lot easier for people to get to their jobs, to get to school and get educated. It’d be a lot easier for people to see their family, for elderly and disabled people to get around. So if we have a modern bus system, then it will be a lot better for the state as a whole.
Hernandez: I’ve been talking with Randall Rose of the Kennedy Plaza Resilience Coalition. Randall, thank you for the time and for the insight. Appreciate it.
Rose: Thank you very much.
