‘Status quo roadmap’: Critics say new RI transportation plan fails climate, transit goals

• Attorney General Peter Neronha wrote that the transportation plan “fails to take a forward-looking approach to achieving the state’s long-term goals.”
• Of the $11.5 billion in the plan, 76% would go to roads and bridges.
• The plan, which is required for federal funding, was approved on a 18-1 vote.

Rhode Island planners have approved a new version of the state’s 10-year transportation funding plan over objections that it is too focused on automobiles and will not do enough to meet the state’s climate goals.

The State Transportation Improvement Plan for 2026-2025 lays out $11.5 billion worth of spending over that period, including construction, maintenance, highways, streets, sidewalks, bridges, buses and ferries.

It was approved by the State Planning Council 18-1 on Thursday, Sept. 11, with only Scott Wolf of Grow Smart RI opposed. The Planning Council includes many state employees, including members of Gov. Dan McKee’s Cabinet.

But outside the Planning Council members, there were loud objections to the plan.

AG: Plan fails to address targets set by Act on Climate

Attorney General Peter Neronha wrote to the Planning Council saying the transportation plan “fails to take a forward-looking approach to achieving the state’s long-term goals, and falls far short of meaningfully furthering compliance with the Act on Climate.”

The Act on Climate requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 (from 1990 levels) and achieve net zero emissions by 2050 or be subject to legal action.

It is not clear how close Rhode Island is to being on track to meet its Act on Climate goals, but President Donald Trump’s orders to halt incentives for electric vehicles and carbon-free power projects have created new challenges.

“While the importance of safely maintained roads and improved roads and bridges throughout the state cannot be stressed enough, steps should also be taken to further investments that expand public options, promote mode shift away from single vehicle travel and reduce emissions,” Neronha wrote.

Federal law requires all states to have an approved plan, by the start of October, for the next four years of transportation spending, and later years of the plan are more tentative.

Criticism of RIPTA service cuts

In explaining why he would vote against the plan, Wolf said that “although there are some excellent projects, looking at this as a whole … we think this [plan] is mostly a status quo roadmap.

“At a time that for multiple compelling reasons we believe we need to move in a more transit and bike and pedestrian friendly direction,” Wolf said. “And instead we’re still facing proposed transit service cutbacks … service cutbacks which could be completely avoided, through a reallocation of 1 tenth of 1% of the current state budget.”

The vote comes after the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority earlier this month approved a reworked spending plan that reduces trip frequency across the statewide bus network to close a budget gap.

The new 10-year plan also includes, at best, modest funding to execute RIPTA’s 2020 Transit Master Plan, including a planned “metro connector” or high frequency and capacity rapid transit line from Central Falls to Warwick. (RIPTA was expected to release the results of a planning study for the corridor in “summer 2025.”)

Meredith Brady, secretary of the Division of Statewide Planning, said if more money was going to be spent on non-highway projects the money would need to be taken from something specific that it is currently budgeted for.

“But given our need to meet this deadline, unless there are specific proposals that we can consider … we would need to have very specific information about what was going to be removed,” she said.

Of the $11.5 billion in the plan, 76% is ticketed for roads and bridges, 4% for transit and 6% for bicycle and pedestrian projects, which are often incorporated into road projects.

Bright spots in the transportation plan

Despite his big-picture opposition, Wolf said positive projects in the new 10-year plan included the Kingston Station Mobility Hub, Westerly Train Station platform upgrades, Mount Hope Bay Greenway and Wakefield Main Street improvements.

Grow Smart RI is part of a dozen-group coalition, including the Acadia Center, Save RIPTA and the Conservation Law Foundation, that wrote with a series of requests to the Planning Council including:

• A detailed account of how the state DOT plans to reduce carbon emissions and take steps to reduce driving instead of relying on a transition to electric cars
• A separate plan section on how the state intends to execute the Transit Master Plan
• Shift some flexible federal transportation funding toward RIPTA
• Put funding behind plans to electrify the MBTA’s Providence Line
• Build dedicated bus lanes on existing highway lanes and include a carpool lane on the new westbound Washington Bridge.