Tangled Lines

Rhode Island Transit Authority bus 22’s detour through Garden City lasted just over 30 days. With increasing pressure from Garden City Drive residents, RIDOT and RIPTA have arrived at a complex solution involving four bus routes that will return the residential neighborhood to its bucolic self.

The detour had been prompted by a sudden RIDOT-imposed weight restriction on a Pontiac Avenue bridge. To remedy the situation, RIPTA announced the following changes in a press release late last week. The 22 line will now end at the Euston turnaround on Pontiac Avenue, about a couple of blocks from the start of Garden City Drive. Route 13 will serve the Garden City and Chapel View shops, but will now bypass Reservoir Avenue and use Route 95 to get to and from Kennedy Plaza. Much of bus 13’s old route will be picked up by a new line, bus 21. The 21 line will utilize smaller buses to meet the DOT’s bridge weight restriction on Reservoir Avenue. RIPTA will also introduce bus 23, which will use Route 95 to get to and from the Howard Center, and pick up much of the former 22 line, serving Mayfield Street, Warwick Mall, RI Mall and CCRI. The RIPTA web site has an even longer and equally confusing explanation of the new routes. All the changes went into effect Saturday.

The dissatisfaction with the buses on Garden City Drive had reached the boiling point. A neighborhood meeting was scheduled for July 17, with an open invitation to DOT Director, Michael Lewis, RIPTA General Manager, Alfred Moscola as well as the city administrators. The meeting was coordinated with the help of state rep Peter Palumbo. This was the actual illustration on the flyer that was circulating:

My personal favorites were “wear and tear to our roads,” “public safety?” and simply “outrageous!” The illustration inspired me to create one of my own:

As neighborhood causes go, to me this one didn’t carry the same weight as the Cement Plant fight (with no pun intended). And not just because of the humorously hyperbolic flyer. Maybe it’s because the Plant adversely affected so many residents for the benefit of a few. The bus detour fight, on the other hand, is a case of a few residents affecting the lives of many others beyond their own backyards. And did anyone in the neighborhood actually take advantage of the buses while they were literally at their doorsteps?

I guess I could use some bus sensitivity training. I lived in an apartment right above Gano Street in Providence for over ten years where the buses, the noise and the grime were written into the lease. Not to mention I’m a big fan of bus 22.

But I knew what I was getting into when I signed my Gano Street rental agreement. The buses were already there, and they probably helped to keep my rent so cheap. Garden City residents, on the other hand, didn’t buy their properties knowing that a bus was going to rumble through every 20 minutes. The bus line was foisted upon them for reasons beyond their control. And therein lies the true injustice.

“Unfair” probably would’ve been the most honest and succinct statement on the flyer.