The Truth Behind RIPTA's Drastic Service Cuts

A Statement by Rhode Island Transit Riders

We're going to tell the truth. The drastic service cuts being planned for Rhode Island's bus system are a crisis, and it's a crisis caused by politicians like Governor Daniel McKee.

At the end of 2023, RIPTA (Rhode Island Public Transit Authority) had notified Governor McKee and other state leaders that it needed an extra $18 million in funding for the coming fiscal year just to maintain the current bus service that many thousands of Rhode Islanders need. But Governor McKee refused. Despite all the work that RIPTA has done over the years to be financially efficient, McKee proposed a state budget in January for FY2025 that only includes $10 million of the $18 million needed for RIPTA. [Corrected: An earlier edition incorrectly said it was $8 million of the needed $18 million]

The official announcement of these planned service cuts tries to make it seem like the cuts are due to a driver shortage and not due to the lack of funding for public transit. This is categorically false. We understand that officials don't want to make it look like the Governor made this happen, but Governor McKee has failed to address RIPTA’s well-documented fiscal crisis. He could have provided the funds to avoid the impending “fiscal cliff” by proposing a modification to his supplemental FY2024 budget request released on January 18, 2024, on the same day he unveiled his inadequate FY2025 budget, with only $8 million of the $18 million needed for RIPTA.

RIPTA hadn't been planning to cut anything until it became clear that Governor McKee wasn't going to give RIPTA the funds it needed to keep going. Despite all the work that RIPTA has done over the years to be financially efficient, it is the Governor’s failure to support the transit agency that has necessitated the drastic service cuts we are now seeing, with reductions impacting twenty-nine of RIPTA's sixty-eight bus routes. Eleven routes are going to be eliminated, and even more routes will lose at least their entire Sunday service (often losing all their weekend service and some of their weekday service). Over 40% of RIPTA's routes will be reduced.

These service cuts are not due to a driver shortage. RIPTA reallocated existing funds within its budget at its board meeting in late November, shifting $3 million more to deal with driver-shortage issues. The driver-shortage issue was on track to be taken care of, it's just that state leaders didn't provide the funds that RIPTA needed and asked for to maintain operations. Other transit agencies around the country have faced driver-shortage issues recently, but they don't make these drastic service cuts unless their funding is inadequate.

The cuts being proposed for RIPTA are devastating and will harm Rhode Island's seniors, people with disabilities, students, working people, and the small businesses that rely on them.

If our state leaders gave RIPTA a stable, adequate funding source to replace the declining gas tax, this problem could be taken care of. We've asked for that for years. Where are our priorities? What good is a new indoor transit hub while RIPTA is eviscerating its service? State leaders own this problem. They should fix it.