PROVIDENCE – Little Roady, a six-seat self-driving shuttle bus, began making rounds from the Providence railroad station to Olneyville and back in 2019, as part of a one-year pilot program to test out their suitability as a transit alternative for Rhode Island.

After testing the vehicle out for three months on less busy roads in Quonset Point, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation offered the service free to riders on the Providence route beginning in May. Less sophisticated than driverless vehicles today, Little Roady stuck to a fixed route, mapped out for it.

The service got around the legal prohibition of autonomous vehicles on Rhode Island roads because it wasn’t fully autonomous; a human attendant sat in the driver’s seat and took control when the self-driving vehicle couldn’t handle a situation.

In the first nine months of the pilot, Little Roady gave more than 33,000 rides. During that period, the shuttles were involved in 11 “incidents” with other vehicles or objects, according to the DOT. All of those happened when a human attendant was operating the vehicle, and none involved injuries.

Although there had been talk of extending the pilot for a second year, the program came to an end in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and wasn’t renewed.

“What it taught us is the technology was not ready for the roads,” DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin told The Journal last month. The attendant had to take the wheel too often for left turns, he said.

The pilot program, operated by May Mobility, was paid for with $500,000 in Volkswagen emissions scandal settlement money, $580,000 in federal research funds and $145,000 in state dollars.

Nine minutes was all the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) needed Friday to update commuters about the demolition of westbound Washington Bridge, which is scheduled to resume early next week after an almost monthlong pause.

The update was given at a virtual public meeting — RIDOT’s first such since the bridge closed last December — though it served more as a presentation where staff outlined what has already been torn down, along with what to expect when work starts Tuesday, Oct. 15. RIDOT Director Peter Alviti, Jr. was not on the call.

Demolition, which began mid-August by Warwick-based Aetna Bridge Co., was put on pause Sept. 17 for the state’s legal team to preserve evidence in its ongoing lawsuit against the 13 firms who previously worked on the bridge. The westbound Washington Bridge — which had carried about 96,000 vehicles per day between East Providence and Providence — suddenly closed in December after engineers discovered broken anchor rods that put the highway at risk of collapse.

Three days after demolition was halted, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters the pause would last “days, not weeks.” Office spokesperson Timothy Rondeau declined to comment Friday why the evidence preservation went on for nearly a month.

Road closures on the way

Starting at 7 p.m Tuesday, RIDOT will close a section of Waterfront Drive in East Providence by the overpass for approximately one week as demolition resumes. Drivers will be directed to a detour on Valley Street — a portion of which is gravel, according to RIDOT.

Gano Street in Providence will be closed Sunday through Thursday nights at the Interstate 195 overpass from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. — with potential for a full weekend closure in late October.

At the time of the pause, crews removed asphalt and “most of the existing concrete barrier,” Assistant Project Manager Steve Soderland said during the presentation. 

“And in the Gano Street area, we’ve removed much of the concrete bridge deck,” he said.

Soderland acknowledged frustrations neighborhood residents have had about loud construction noises, saying it would only last at most three more days once demolition resumes.

“Night work will continue throughout the remainder of the project, but will produce less noise similar to typical construction activities,” Soderland said.

Timeline still up in the air

The edges of the bridge are expected to be completely torn down by November — at which point the demolition crew will work on removing the center section over the Seekonk River. That’s expected to take up to four months, Soderland said.

The superstructure of the bridge was expected to be torn down by the end of January, according to the proposal Aetna submitted to RIDOT. But whether that is still feasible is unclear.

RIDOT Communications Director Liz Pettengill acknowledged the Rhode Island Current’s inquiry on the project timeline, but did not respond by publication Friday evening.

That’s not the only aspect of the project still in limbo. RIDOT has yet to open a new bidding process to rebuild the highway. The initial request for proposals (RFP) — posted April 30 with a July 3 deadline to respond — drew no bidders. 

“No date for the RFP yet,” Pettengill said in an email.

With so much in question, Providence City Councilor John Goncalves, whose ward includes the Washington Bridge site, criticized RIDOT on social media for holding such a short meeting.

“I’ve got Fox Point constituents blowing up my line trying to get real answers,” he said.

RIDOT did allow those who attended the Zoom meeting to upload comments, but they were not made public — nor were they answered during the meeting. Pamela Cotter, the department’s director of planning said answers would be posted regularly on the Washington Bridge project website “over the next few weeks.”

Those who missed Friday’s presentation can submit questions on the demolition’s public input website through Friday, Oct. 18. A recording of the meeting will be online Tuesday, Oct. 15.