Gov. Dan McKee and Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) leadership have cobbled together a new plan to help dig the public transit agency out of its multimillion-dollar deficit.

The new budget framework avoids the wide and deep cuts proposed in July to plug the agency’s $10 million budget deficit. It also arrives just three days before the RIPTA board meets to vote on service changes, which would go into effect Sept. 27 if approved. It’s the first meeting since its Aug. 7 meeting, when it tabled the original roster of cuts following a last-minute intervention by McKee.

“Overall, our new proposal stabilizes the Authority’s finances, modernizes operations, realigns service deliberately and sustainably, and protects core services — all without asking more of the taxpayer,” McKee and RIPTA CEO Christopher Durand wrote in their jointly-signed letter to the RIPTA board.

The letter was shared publicly late Monday afternoon. While a complete copy of the new plan was not immediately available, the letter does describe its general features. Among the strategies offered: 

• Boosting advertising revenue and federal reimbursements by about $2.5 million a year.
• Slashing $2.4 million in administrative costs, while avoiding driver layoffs — something bundled with the original proposal that drew fierce opposition, given RIPTA’s recent struggle to hire and retain drivers. 
• Creating a multi-year fare adjustment plan, although no definite timeline is provided for these fare increases.
• Fronting $3 million in federal funds through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program, then later backfilling the funds with a transfer from RIPTA’s capital budget, to help support the new plan.
• Expanding workforce partnerships over time via the Wave to Work commuter program, which is used by employers like Omni Hotel and Miriam Hospital. Route adjustments to workplaces like Amazon, Electric Boat, and Rhode Island Football Club will also be enhanced. 

It also leaves the RIde Anywhere program for riders with disabilities untouched, and strives to preserve service for routes used by Community College of Rhode Island, University of Rhode Island, Providence high school students.

Unlike the original plan which reduced service on 58 of 67 routes statewide — a maneuver which included outright elimination of 17 routes — the new plan’s more targeted service reductions would primarily affect weekend and off-peak hours.

A newly updated page on RIPTA’s website also details the extent of the proposal’s tweaks to service and operations.

The new schematic for saving RIPTA drew mixed reactions, with the harshest rebukes coming again from riders.

“Instead of gutting RIPTA, it leaves it on life support,” said Amy Glidden, a bus rider and advocate who co-chairs the group RI Transit Riders, in a phone call Monday. “I don’t know if [McKee] just thought like, ‘Oh, if I just don’t cut the route then people think I’m the hero,’ but he’s still the villain in the story.”

Glidden called McKee’s latest effort at saving RIPTA “misleading,” and gave the example of cuts on Route 69, which primarily serves University of Rhode Island students. One of the transit network’s lower-performing routes, according to a recent efficiency study, the 69 bus would have been removed from service entirely under the original proposal. The new proposal is not much more user-friendly, Glidden argued, as it drops bus arrivals to every 90 minutes on weekdays. Weekend hours would be eliminated, and weekday service would end at 10:20 p.m., rather than after midnight.

“You get out of class and you wait an hour and a half in a Rhode Island winter for your bus,” Glidden said.

Glidden added that federal funds like those from CMAQ can only be used to expand operations, not cut them. Cutting from future capital funds to support current operations in the present is like “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Glidden said, characterizing the move as an “accounting trick” that wouldn’t do much for the agency’s financial future or its solvency.

Glidden also disputed McKee’s argument that RIPTA fares have not risen in years. While the individual $2 fare has not moved, the costs of monthly passes have risen, and free transfers were also eliminated for customers paying cash.

“He wants to shrink RIPTA. I don’t know why he has such a vendetta against bus riders, but this is utterly devastating,” Glidden said.

The Save RIPTA coalition also released a statement generally critical of the new plan.

“After months of sustained advocacy and an avalanche of opposition from across the state, we are glad that Governor McKee is bringing RIPTA back from the brink by choosing a pathway to avert massive layoffs and cuts to entire routes that would devastate our transit system beyond repair,” Liza Burkin, president of the organization’s board, wrote in the statement. “While slightly better than the initial proposal, the Governor’s new budget deal still reduces frequency and weekend service on 46 of RIPTA’s routes, making the system less convenient and reliable overall.”

In a statement released about an hour after McKee’s announcement, Rhode Island House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi took a blasé stance on the news, reiterating that the General Assembly played its part in the RIPTA “crisis” by investing an additional $15 million in the current budget.   

“As the House scrutinizes this latest announcement, we will continue to work with advocates and hold the Administration and the RIPTA board accountable to develop a comprehensive plan that will create a better public transit model for Rhode Island,” Shekarchi wrote.

The Community College of Rhode Island was at least happy with the changes. The school tweeted that it was “grateful” to McKee and RIPTA for a “commitment to maintaining critical service routes that our students depend on.”

RIPTA routes affected under the Aug. 25 proposal

Routes 3, 4, 6, 9x, 12x, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59x, 60, 61x, 63, 65x, 66, 68, 69, 72, 75, 76, 78, 87, 92, 95x, and the R-line.