No one cared about Peter Alviti - until it affected them...

No one is immune from government overreach and disregard until all of us are immune.

The media microscope under which Rhode Island Department of Transportation (DOT) Director Peter Alviti finds himself is beginning to reveal an allegedly abusive management style¹, a dismissive - if not openly hostile - attitude toward the public², and a cozy relationship with DOT contractors³, as demonstrated by the three social media posts reproduced below.

But Director Alviti has always been this way. This behavior isn’t new. It’s just that now people are noticing because a major bridge is out of commission.

For instance, when Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee put Director Alviti on the board of the Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority (RIPTA) it wasn’t done to improve public transportation, and under Director Alviti RIPTA is slated to slash routes and services across the state.

This, of course, only directly affects bus riders, who are, on average, from a lower socio-economic status than the drivers who regularly use the Washington Bridge.

When Director Alviti ignored all the public input on the 6/10 connector, and instead of reconnecting neighborhoods destroyed by racist 1960s policies doubled down on an elevated highway system, he was continuing decades-old ideas that targeted poor communities of color, just as he did when DOT used contaminated soil as a landfill during the construction of the 6/10 Connector. The dust from this contaminated soil was blown into a low-income community, with as yet unknown health effects.

I should also mention how Director Alviti attempted to raid funds earmarked for biking infrastructure to build more roads. Few transportation advocates cannot tell a personal story about Director Alviti lying to them.

Excellent reporting was done on all these things - but few people, other than transportation wonks and biking enthusiasts, took notice or cared. Director Alviti serves the people who matter: connected politicians, contractors, and the building trades. The people Director Alviti was hurting lived in low-income communities or didn’t drive.

Taking public amenities away from people is a feature, not a bug under Director Alviti’s DOT. For instance, restrooms were removed from the plans for the new train station in Pawtucket. Can you imagine an airport without restrooms? Why would train passengers warrant less concern?

Another amenity under threat from Director Alviti is the Kennedy Plaza bus hub. A bond issue approved by voters many years ago to improve bus hubs across our state is being frittered away by the McKee Administration as they use all the money to destroy and move the bus hub out of Kennedy Plaza, to some unknown location far from the services public transportation riders count on. This is being done not because riders have asked for it, but because wealthy downtown developers want to transform Kennedy Plaza into a place where low-income people and students are no longer welcome. They feel that people experiencing poverty and homelessness, as well as high school students, detract from the beauty of their buildings. As head of the RIPTA Board, Director Alviti is a key part of this theft of public land.

Director Alviti messed up

Had he continued his reckless assault on low-income people, bike riders, public transit users, and communities of color, it is unlikely that the major media outlets would have done more than a story or two. But instead, Director Alviti allowed a major bridge to fall into dangerous disrepair. Now, middle-class and rich white people are finding themselves inconvenienced. These people have political power, and politicians who could not have cared less about people getting run over on North Main Street are suddenly forced to take notice - an uncomfortable position for many politicians who share the same allegiances to the moneyed interests that Governor McKee and his homunculus, Director Alviti, genuflect before.

It doesn’t end at DOT

DOT under Director Alviti and our state government as a whole is not a singular expression of the disdain Rhode Island shows for low-income people of color. Take the case of the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). When National Grid wanted to expand fossil fuels in the Port of Providence, then Governor Gina Raimondo changed the people in charge of the CRMC to make that happen.

When community members who lived around the Port spoke out at public meetings, the head of the CRMC, hand-picked to push through National Grid’s fossil fuel expansion, threatened to have them arrested. The CRMC withheld reports that cast doubt on the need for the expansion and their ability to resist it. Despite public outcry the expansion was approved.

Emboldened by the utter lack of accountability they experienced, the CRMC approved the expansion of a marina on Block Island in what turned out to be an extremely shady and illegal move. But the CRMC overstepped. It’s one thing to step all over the rights and health of a low-income community of color, like in South Providence. But it’s another thing entirely to shit on the mostly white, mostly affluent residents of New Shoreham. The Attorney General stepped in, the marina expansion died, and CRMC is under new management.

Two weeks or so before the Attorney General stepped in, and just as the story about the New Shoreham marina was breaking, the Rhode Island Senate overwhelmingly approved the reappointment of the offending members of CRMC that Governor Raimondo had installed to smooth the way for fossil fuel expansion in the Port. I testified to the CRMC’s actions in South Providence, but not one Senator was moved to vote differently. Less than a month later, after the Attorney General got involved, those re-approved members of the CRMC stepped down in disgrace.

But that’s not all.

Right now, the City of Pawtucket is actively seeking to pave over the only greenspace in the Woodlawn neighborhood, a community of low-income people of color. Can you imagine the outcry if the city were to try and do that to Slater Park?

When Providence Police detectives searched the tents of unhoused people, telling those living there that they didn’t need a warrant because “you live in a tent” Mayor Smiley first denied it happened, then declined to investigate, and then lied to me. In the future, when these same police officers violate the rights of a white homeowner, maybe then the Mayor will take notice and do something, but as long as the Providence police only violate the rights of low- and no-income people of color, there will be few if any consequences.

So what does this all mean?

White middle-class and rich Rhode Islanders are not immune from the consequences of poor governance, violent policing, and bad infrastructure decisions. They are just a little further down the list. Our politicians and their hand-picked public servants practice their outrages on those with less political power, and in their arrogance, sometimes make the mistake of targeting those that politicians and the media believe matter.

The stories I told above about people who use public transportation or live in low-income communities of color are common. They happen all the time. And the things happening to these community members matter as much - no, fuck that - matter more than the drive time commutes of the SUV and pickup truck drivers crossing the Washington Bridge.

This isn’t about ignoring the canaries in the coal mine - they are people, not canaries. They were being poisoned, stolen from, ignored, shut out of the discussion, and abused for years - while the people who crossed the Washington Bridge every day lived their lives as though it couldn’t happen.

What happened in New Shoreham should have been a wake-up call. If the police can pepper spray children of color in South Providence, they can shoot a white kid in the arm for no reason in West Greenwich.

No one is immune from government overreach and disregard until all of us are immune.

1. Boston Globe:

2. Dylan Giles:

3. Kathy Gregg: