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Rhode Island
‘Status quo roadmap’: Critics say new RI transportation plan fails climate, transit goals
Helena Foulkes announces run for governor.
The former CVS Pharmacy executive whose near-miss three years ago and prolific fundraising make her the 2026 favorite in some quarters, officially kicked off her second campaign for governor Tuesday, Sept. 9.
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.
New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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