RIPTA Transit Forward RI 2040

Transit Forward RI 2040 won the 2021 Outstanding Smart Growth Award from Grow Smart Rhode Island.

Rhode Island, while small, has a robust network of bus, commuter rail, intercity rail, and ferry services. RIPTA provides nearly 17 million bus passenger trips per year, and RIDOT and Boston’s MBTA transports 1.1 million passengers a year to and from Rhode Island. RIPTA, whose services are focused around Providence, carries many more passengers than transit systems in larger cities such as Nashville, Kansas City, and Fort Worth.

Transit Forward RI 2040 was designed to determine the steps that Rhode Island should take to build upon its current transit strengths—to make Rhode Island an even more attractive place to live and work, helping the state attract businesses, connect residents with jobs, retain younger residents, and attract new talent.

The effort consisted of a data driven analysis of underlying transit demand, the development of strategies to service that demand, the development of alternative transit scenarios, and the development of far-ranging recommendations that were combined into five major initiatives:

- Improve existing services

- Expand services to new areas

- Develop high-capacity transit

- Improve access to transit

- Make service easier to use

Together, these initiatives will produce a great leap forward to produce a world class transit system for Providence and Rhode Island, greatly enhancing Rhode Island's attractiveness and competitiveness. As a follow-on, we developed a funding plan for Rhode Island’s Transit Master Plan. This included determining total funding requirements, year-by-year cash flow requirements, identifying potential funding sources, and estimating the amount of revenue each could produce. The final plan identifies sources and rates that will generate the requirement revenues in a manner that the public will support.