Transportation Planner Hayden Clarkin: RIPTA Hub Relocation Plan Ignores Bus Riders’ Needs

Transportation Planner Hayden Clarkin: RIPTA Hub Relocation Plan Ignores Bus Riders’ Needs

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Providence Transit Planner Argues $77 Million Hub Move Would Harm Bus Riders

In a column for pvdeye.org, transportation planner Hayden Clarkin argues that Rhode Island’s plan to spend $77 million relocating the state’s largest transit hub from downtown Providence’s Kennedy Plaza to a new center beside the Providence Train Station would make life harder for the average bus rider. The proposal, which the state and the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority board have voted to pursue, would move the hub that roughly 40 bus routes and millions of passengers pass through annually to Station Park, a green field adjacent to the train station. He opens his piece with a tongue-in-cheek nod to Benjamin Franklin:

“Nothing is certain but death and taxes and Rhode Island’s continued war on transit.”

Clarkin, who writes that he frequently rides the MBTA and Amtrak and would personally benefit from the move, contends that the project prioritizes rail connectivity and federal funding eligibility over the destinations of actual bus passengers.

Clarkin acknowledges that Kennedy Plaza has genuine problems. The project’s own consultants describe overcrowding at peak hours, passengers squeezed onto narrow unsheltered islands, and persistent quality-of-life issues. The plaza, which hosted a young John F. Kennedy speaking to 40,000 to 50,000 people in 1960 and was later renamed for him, became the state’s consolidated bus hub in 1983 under Mayor Buddy Cianci. Counting special and seasonal buses, Kennedy Plaza serves about 60 percent of all bus routes in the state, and weighted by service levels the share is far higher. Since then, Clarkin notes, there have been six separate efforts across ten different sites in 13 years to move buses out of the plaza, including a 2023 proposal to use former I-195 land that was justified partly by its proximity to the state’s largest homeless shelter.

Where Riders Actually Go

The core of Clarkin’s argument rests on a map produced by the project’s own study showing where RIPTA riders are actually traveling. The density sits squarely on downtown Providence, not the train station. Riders transfer through downtown to reach hospitals, workplaces, schools, and shops. Although the Providence Train Station is the 14th busiest Amtrak station in the country and the MBTA’s Providence Line is that system’s busiest, Clarkin writes that bus-to-train connections do not drive the network, especially given neither state has shown real interest in electrifying the Providence Line.

The consultants’ scoring supports this assessment. Across seven sites formally evaluated, every site near the train station scored Fair or Poor on maximizing access to where riders are going, while sites in or near the downtown core scored Good. When the public was asked at a meeting which site they preferred, Clarkin reports, the winner was a site between the station and downtown that came in ten votes ahead of the station-adjacent option. That site was ruled out on land economics—a substantial ground rent payment and a landowner who likely wants a high-rise—rather than rider access.

Funding Shapes the Site

Some advantageous federal grant and low-cost loan programs limit eligibility to sites at or immediately near passenger rail facilities, with one tool requiring a location within half a mile of a rail station. He writes that while he understands an underfunded agency chasing eligible money, a hub sited to qualify for a loan program is not the same as a hub sited for the people who ride the bus.

The plan also raises safety concerns about Memorial Drive, the widest road running through downtown at five to six lanes. To walk from the proposed hub to downtown, riders would have to cross it. Clarkin calls it unconscionable to route transit riders, who the project’s own survey data shows are overwhelmingly low- and moderate-income, across that road when the city’s envisioned redesign with wider sidewalks and better crossings remains unfunded and is not being built alongside this plan.

Design Flaws Concentrate Southern Traffic

Clarkin points to operational problems in the site plan. The proposed hub would have two entrances and three exits, making it less permeable than Kennedy Plaza. He notes that 37 of the routes serving the hub would approach from the south, nine from the north, and five from either direction, creating a lopsided load on two entrances. Of the 37 southern routes, he counts that 32 would end up farther from where their riders are actually going than they are today.

The site is also laid out as a terminal rather than a through station, which Clarkin says undermines through-running that has worked well on the 92 and R Line. The 92 would not be able to run straight through but would have to funnel into and back out of the same chokepoint as other buses. An exit onto Railroad Street, historically used as a drop-off zone for the train station, would add bus movements without a physical barrier to stop cars from blocking service.

The $77 Million Alternative

Clarkin argues the money would be better spent elsewhere. For $77 million, he writes, the state could fund the Memorial Drive redesign that has been designed but never paid for, buy back a meaningful share of RIPTA service hours that were cut, build through-running infrastructure to make the 92 and R Line a network, or rebuild Kennedy Plaza properly. The consultants note that service to the Kennedy Plaza area continues under every scenario, meaning the state would maintain two hubs instead of fixing one.

The column places the proposal in the context of chronic underfunding. Rhode Island spends an estimated $12.50 to $25 per capita on transit according to Transportation for America’s state funding database, compared to Connecticut’s $50 to $100 and Massachusetts’ over $200. In the last year, RIPTA lost 12 percent of its ridership following service cuts, and the bus Clarkin rides most went from 20-minute service to 30-minute service. A recent Transportation for America report found the Providence metro would need 823 buses to reach world-class transit standards of 60 buses per 100,000 people, leaving the state roughly 598 buses short. RIPTA’s 2011 budget of $100 million equals about $197.25 million in today’s dollars, while today’s budget is $153.25 million, a $44 million cut in real terms. Federal formula funding is projected to fall from $41.1 million in FY2024 to $35.8 million by FY2029.

“Would you rather bus service be safe from service cuts for the next decade or a new bus hub?”

The Providence Train Station renovation itself, he notes, is warranted and already improving the experience, but adding the bus hub there conflates two different projects.

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