MEDIA ADVISORY: Join us for our Transit Vigil “R.I.P.-TA” on Tuesday Sept. 23, 5:30pm in Kennedy Plaza! 🕯️🚌 Transit may never be the same. Wear black, bring a candle.

HUGE THANKS to everyone who joined our monthly Community Organizing Group (COG) meeting last night, and to @mapcenter.com for hosting!

Yay looking forward to it!! Thanks for hosting!

🚌🕯️Join us as we light a candle and mourn the transit system of today as we prepare for the sweeping service cuts that take effect Sept. 27. 🪦R.I.P.-TA 🚌Vigil for Public Transit 📆Tues., Sept. 23, 5:30pm ☔️(rain date Wed., Sept. 24) 📍Kennedy Plaza 🕯️Bring a candle, wear black

Providence is a walkable city. In some parts. Here's a map that shows you more. @pvdstreets.bsky.social www.providencejournal.com/story/news/l...

Define ‘everything’ @govdanmckee.bsky.social While Massachusetts is expanding public transit, the failure of Gov. McKee’s leadership continues to make businesses like Hasbro want to leave our state. www.wpri.com/business/has...

McKee cut transit. McKee lost Hasbro. I’m tired of being right.

This is a HUGE step forward for Paratransit! Thank you to everyone at @ripta.com who worked on it + all of the ATAC members who tested it & gave feedback! 🚌♿️

⚙️Community Organizing Group (COG) is back and making our way to the @mapcenter.com on 9/16 @ 6:00pm! 🗺️Come early and enjoy all of the incredible and unique finds the Map Center has to offer! 🧠Then gather as we collaborate and strategize about all of the PVD Streets advocacy efforts…with snacks! 🥨

Latest Blab Lab episode is out. @pvdstreets.bsky.social advocate 17yr old Cedric Ye chats with me about RIPTA, trains, and homework! ecori.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?... @ecorinews.bsky.social

Listen to Kenny! If anyone knows about public transit and its importance, it's him.

A friendly Friday reminder on how we do last minute allocations: ✅$6.8M for RIDOT to tow cars from the Washington Bridge 264 times ❌$4M to maintain RIPTA bus service for 35,000 people

🚌💀Today the RIPTA Board of Directors, with the leadership of Peter Alviti leading the charge, voted to officially enact one of the largest reductions to RIPTA service in its history. We will continue fighting for as long as it takes until RIPTA is fully funded. 💪💪💪 Our statement ⤵️

Approaching: 2026 Rhode Island Gubernatorial Election 🚌🗳️ Transit riders are tired of having to beg for basic services each year before any action is taken. We could’ve avoided all this in January if you didn’t shortchange RIPTA. See ya at the ballot box, @GovDanMcKee.bsky.social 👋🏽⚓️

The service cuts have been approved by RIPTA Board, only one dissenting vote. (Normand Benoit) Peter Alviti shut all of the resistance down during board discussion, shrinking the agency is what he wanted all along.

In all, 27 speakers spoke for the last 90 minutes. People are fired up! Now board discussion begins.

Packed room: People are fired up to stand up for RIPTA. Live updates: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

“Cuts to RIPTA will not reduce costs—they will shift them. Missed outpatient care ultimately shows up as higher-cost emergency visits and avoidable hospitalizations, further straining a health system already under pressure.” Are you listening to the doctors @govdanmckee.bsky.social? 🏥🚌

NEW: R.I. Medical Society + R.I. Health Centers Assn. + RI Academy of Family Physicians issue joint statement opposing RIPTA Cuts: “Public transit is not optional for many Rhode Islanders—it is a health lifeline.” Read the full letter⤵️

🚌❌TODAY: Pack the Board room and oppose service reductions that will cripple RIPTA’s ability to serve its current riders and attract new ones! Details & talking points: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

📢Mayor Smiley and Central Falls City Council adding their voices to the chorus of public officials opposing the service cuts! Read the flurry of letters & resolutions from cities and towns sounding the ALARM that cutting RIPTA is bad news for Rhode Island!⤵️ drive.google.com/drive/folder...

NEW TIME: Thursday’s meeting has been updated with a time change: back to the standard 1:30pm

There is nothing to celebrate here. This is still a massive reduction in service that will harm riders with frequency reductions and elimination of weekend service. Our full statement below ⤵️

And the fruits of her labor are starting to show with the agreement to let the city handle portions of the redesign. Also huge props to @pvdstreets.bsky.social and especially @dylancgiles.bsky.social who have done real movement building for safer streets in Providence. This work was necessary. /4

“But public transit has for too long been the state’s Rodney Dangerfield — getting too little respect, attention, and investment.” 1/2

Raising fares keeps coming up, so we put together this handy explainer for @govdanmckee.bsky.social ⤵️ Spoiler: It won’t work and it will likely backfire. Read the full post: pvdstreets.org/7-reasons-ra...

Some light reading for @govdanmckee.bsky.social from @apta-info.bsky.social back in 1999. Turns out the “transit death spiral” is not a new phenomenon.

Thank You Providence Foundation and David Salvatore for recognizing the economic impact and potential for growth that public transit provides to the City of Providence!

✅ Lighting upgrades ❌ Public transit for hospitality workers If @GovDanMcKee does not allocate more funding to RIPTA, there will be cuts to late night and weekend service across the state....

“For two years running, Governor McKee has left RIPTA in the lurch and relied on the General Assembly to find the money to keep this important lifeline running. Now, he’s taking credit for our accomplishments and casting himself as a champion of a public transit agency he habitually underfunds.” 🔥🔥🔥

Governor McKee unmoved by constituents who depend on RIPTA "It’s about making sure that our neighbors can have access to the library through public transportation." steveahlquist.substack.com/p/governor-m...

Honestly, the fact that this happened at a library, on a day where we got to celebrate cementing freedom to read, is why I have a smile on my face here and was able to do that the whole time.

Came to Rochambeau Library this morning to beg the Governor for RIPTA funding, stayed to celebrate the Rhode Island Freedom to Read Act being signed inside!

🚌📚Came to @9librariespvd.bsky.social to remind @govdanmckee.bsky.social that—just like public libraries—public transit is ESSENTIAL to our community! 🔥

If your goal is DOGE style “efficiency” by slashing public services for those who need it most, this would be an “exciting time.” Shame on you @govdanmckee.bsky.social for defunding RIPTA and letting Director Alviti lead this agency into the ground.

Take a moment to read one planner’s reflection on today’s proceedings. 🧵

The bus drivers are going to destroy him in the ballot box because what comes after cutting routes? The drivers. @govdanmckee.bsky.social is failing at his oath of office.

Governor McKee, you should be ashamed. You are demanding a public service agency that has been operating *efficiently* cut meat off their own bones because *you* decided not to fund it at the level you were told was *required* to maintain service. 1/2

Saying that you recommended $15 million for RIPTA when you actually recommended $0 and then DIDN'T SIGN THE BUDGET because it had $15 million more in it is truly, truly wild.

@govdanmckee.bsky.social’s letter does nothing to assure us that he intends funding RIPTA to avoid slashing service. This administration continues to be out of touch with reality, forcing RIPTA to dig through couch cushions to continue to operate at current levels, trying to get blood from a stone.

BREAKING: RIPTA has tabled the decision to vote on the RIPTA service cuts today. BOD now reading a letter from McKee.

I've watched every minute of the recorded oral comments & read the hundreds of written submissions to @ripta.com in response to the painful service reductions and segment and outright eliminations on the table. This 🧵 is strictly my own and is not an official RIPTA statement.

💪Riders, labor leaders, drivers and elected officials are standing up and speaking out about the misery that awaits RIPTA and everyone who needs it if the proposed service cuts go through. Is @govdanmckee.bsky.social listening?

🚨MAKE A FINAL STAND 📢Demand that the RIPTA board not capitulate to Governor McKee and move forward with service cuts that would leave public transit in Rhode Island gutted and on a path toward complete collapse. Thursday 9:30 am at RIPTA HQ

Wednesdays are for telling @govdanmckee.bsky.social to save @ripta.com from these absurd cuts with @pvdstreets.bsky.social, the SaveRIPTA coalition and my fellow bus riders

Worth pointing out that @govdanmckee.bsky.social won his 2022 primary race by about 3,300 votes which is less than 10% of RIPTA’s daily ridership of 35,000+, each and every one of whom will be negatively impacted by the service cuts resulting from his utter failure of leadership. 🚌🗳️

🗞️MEDIA ADVISORY: 🚨Stranded by the State: Riders Rally to Oppose RIPTA Service Cuts 📢Rally to oppose upcoming cuts to RIPTA service and demand Governor Dan McKee allocate an additional $10 million to maintain existing service levels 📆Wednesday, August 6, 2025, 5:00pm 📍Kennedy Plaza Bus Hub

Governor McKee, we won’t forget your silence at the ballot box next year. 🗳️ Your inaction shows just how little you care about the working class. You’ve thrown us under the bus. How embarrassing to have a governor who ignores the voices of transit riders. 😑

"The Draft STIP fails to take concrete and meaningful steps to invest in the reduction of vehicle miles travelled and transportation emissions." Deeply appreciating this 6-page letter from @peterfneronha.bsky.social on how RIDOT does not care about the #ActonClimate