I don't think this has been discussed in the other threads, and it seems "interdisciplinary" enough to merit its own thread. Feel free to move if not.
RIDOT and RIPTA have proposed (once again) a redesign of Kennedy Plaza, this time including developing two new satellite hubs at the train station and in the erstwhile Jewelry District. Though separate from the already-in-progress Downtown Transit Connector, the decentralization plan does rely on having high-frequency cumulative service along the corridor between the three hubs. A previous proposal put the southern hub at the Garrahy Courthouse, but it has now been relocated to a site along the river.
There aren't a lot of public documents that I've been able to find that actually detail the specifics of this proposal, but I have been able to find a presentation from November, and then an earlier one from July.
While public proposal documents are hard to come by, news articles and blog posts about community opposition are not. See for example the Providence Preservation Society, StreetsBlog, EcoRI in July and again in October.
There are definitely a lot of overlapping pieces to this puzzle. For one, the powers that be have been trying to "fix" Kennedy Plaza for years, if not decades. The trouble with that is that a lot of Kennedy Plaza's "problems" aren't transit or architectural -- they're the unsurprising symptoms of our housing, addiction, and employment crises. (Plus, a good ole double dose of racism and classism.) Most if not all of the Kennedy Plaza "improvement" projects have appeared at least partially motivated to shove these social problems "somewhere else" -- out of sight, out of mind -- instead of actually trying to tackle them directly. There's a history here.
There's also the Superman Building. Rhode Island's tallest building, vacant for over 5 years, towering over Kennedy Plaza. There's history here too, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of people in government who are embarrassed about this situation, and it's not hard to imagine that, in the minds of some, the vacancy is not unrelated to the situation on the ground outside the front door.
(And indeed, if you look at the renderings for the proposed changes at KP, the buses are moved away from the Superman to ring Burnside Park, and the current bus berths in front of the Superman are replaced with greenspace.)
I've also heard concerns raised about the site of the Jewelry District hub -- a former National Grid site that I guess was once industrial and maybe not cleaned up well? I really don't know much and haven't been able to find too much on this point.
Another major concern that's been raised is the worry that decentralizing the transfer hub will force riders to add extra legs to their journeys. On this specific point, I think this is actually just a PR/communication problem -- albeit one that would be so easy to rectify, it amazes me that they haven't and makes me wonder whether it's not as straightforward as I think it is. Anyway -- according to RIDOT's presentation (slide 7), 99% of riders would have no change, and only 1% would need to add an extra leg to travel from KP to the train station for their transfer. Now, that 1% is not numerically small -- over 450 riders per day -- and I think it's perfectly legitimate to demand a better solution for those riders.
(I suspect that those 450 riders are transferring to a long-distance RIPTA route, likely to South County or Smithfield or the like -- meaning they have a long journey ahead of them, and probably are transferring to lower frequency service. RIPTA has made a clear effort in the last few years to increase these routes' access to the train station, I think with the hope of encouraging more commutes from South County to Boston, via RIPTA express buses and the commuter rail. But obviously not all those riders are going to Boston -- a fair number likely need to transfer to local RIPTA buses, and I think these are the ones who would need to add an extra transfer.)
But what I think has failed to be communicated is that virtually all routes would still travel through Kennedy Plaza. This isn't spelled out explicitly in the RIDOT proposal for the multi-hub system... but it is a core concept of the Downtown Transit Connector. I think the idea is that north-originating routes would terminate in the Jewelry District or Hospital District, south-originating routes would terminate at the train station, and east- and west-originating routes would do a dog-leg and terminate at one or the other (maybe with some still terminating at KP), meaning the DTC would become very busy. But that is very very much just my speculation and inference. If it's accurate, then that would explain how most journeys wouldn't change -- you'd still transfer at KP, the only difference would be that your new bus won't be starting its journey there (which does have downsides, I agree, but I digress).
That being said, I suppose it's also possible that the multi-hub network could see most routes avoiding KP -- terminating on the outskirts of Downcity, and letting riders transfer to the DTC to go the last mile. This makes zero sense to me, and is at odds with the implications of slide 7 above, but I suppose is possible.
Either way -- the lack of public detail around this proposal is disheartening, all the more so because it seems like at least one of the major concerns may just be a matter of miscommunication, which nonetheless is costing precious goodwill and exacerbating the situation further.
RIDOT and RIPTA have proposed (once again) a redesign of Kennedy Plaza, this time including developing two new satellite hubs at the train station and in the erstwhile Jewelry District. Though separate from the already-in-progress Downtown Transit Connector, the decentralization plan does rely on having high-frequency cumulative service along the corridor between the three hubs. A previous proposal put the southern hub at the Garrahy Courthouse, but it has now been relocated to a site along the river.
There aren't a lot of public documents that I've been able to find that actually detail the specifics of this proposal, but I have been able to find a presentation from November, and then an earlier one from July.
While public proposal documents are hard to come by, news articles and blog posts about community opposition are not. See for example the Providence Preservation Society, StreetsBlog, EcoRI in July and again in October.
There are definitely a lot of overlapping pieces to this puzzle. For one, the powers that be have been trying to "fix" Kennedy Plaza for years, if not decades. The trouble with that is that a lot of Kennedy Plaza's "problems" aren't transit or architectural -- they're the unsurprising symptoms of our housing, addiction, and employment crises. (Plus, a good ole double dose of racism and classism.) Most if not all of the Kennedy Plaza "improvement" projects have appeared at least partially motivated to shove these social problems "somewhere else" -- out of sight, out of mind -- instead of actually trying to tackle them directly. There's a history here.
There's also the Superman Building. Rhode Island's tallest building, vacant for over 5 years, towering over Kennedy Plaza. There's history here too, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of people in government who are embarrassed about this situation, and it's not hard to imagine that, in the minds of some, the vacancy is not unrelated to the situation on the ground outside the front door.
(And indeed, if you look at the renderings for the proposed changes at KP, the buses are moved away from the Superman to ring Burnside Park, and the current bus berths in front of the Superman are replaced with greenspace.)
I've also heard concerns raised about the site of the Jewelry District hub -- a former National Grid site that I guess was once industrial and maybe not cleaned up well? I really don't know much and haven't been able to find too much on this point.
Another major concern that's been raised is the worry that decentralizing the transfer hub will force riders to add extra legs to their journeys. On this specific point, I think this is actually just a PR/communication problem -- albeit one that would be so easy to rectify, it amazes me that they haven't and makes me wonder whether it's not as straightforward as I think it is. Anyway -- according to RIDOT's presentation (slide 7), 99% of riders would have no change, and only 1% would need to add an extra leg to travel from KP to the train station for their transfer. Now, that 1% is not numerically small -- over 450 riders per day -- and I think it's perfectly legitimate to demand a better solution for those riders.
(I suspect that those 450 riders are transferring to a long-distance RIPTA route, likely to South County or Smithfield or the like -- meaning they have a long journey ahead of them, and probably are transferring to lower frequency service. RIPTA has made a clear effort in the last few years to increase these routes' access to the train station, I think with the hope of encouraging more commutes from South County to Boston, via RIPTA express buses and the commuter rail. But obviously not all those riders are going to Boston -- a fair number likely need to transfer to local RIPTA buses, and I think these are the ones who would need to add an extra transfer.)
But what I think has failed to be communicated is that virtually all routes would still travel through Kennedy Plaza. This isn't spelled out explicitly in the RIDOT proposal for the multi-hub system... but it is a core concept of the Downtown Transit Connector. I think the idea is that north-originating routes would terminate in the Jewelry District or Hospital District, south-originating routes would terminate at the train station, and east- and west-originating routes would do a dog-leg and terminate at one or the other (maybe with some still terminating at KP), meaning the DTC would become very busy. But that is very very much just my speculation and inference. If it's accurate, then that would explain how most journeys wouldn't change -- you'd still transfer at KP, the only difference would be that your new bus won't be starting its journey there (which does have downsides, I agree, but I digress).
That being said, I suppose it's also possible that the multi-hub network could see most routes avoiding KP -- terminating on the outskirts of Downcity, and letting riders transfer to the DTC to go the last mile. This makes zero sense to me, and is at odds with the implications of slide 7 above, but I suppose is possible.
Either way -- the lack of public detail around this proposal is disheartening, all the more so because it seems like at least one of the major concerns may just be a matter of miscommunication, which nonetheless is costing precious goodwill and exacerbating the situation further.
