“It may be a couple of years before we fully regain the pre-pandemic customer base.” “ ridership has been slowly climbing up over the last year and a half or so,” Alviti said during an interview last week with The Hummel Report. One day last week, two of the five electric charging stations on the lower level of the parking garage were being used. Their cars fill up the first floor of the Wickford parking garage on most days, at no charge. Why won't the town let her tie into its water system?Īlviti also forged a partnership with the University of Rhode Island: RIPTA now offers bus service for students and faculty to commute 12 miles to the flagship Kingston campus, where parking is always a challenge.
Hummel Report: A Jamestown woman's well ran dry. The state stopped charging for parking, launched a six-month fare-free pilot program to introduce riders to the train, and moved a RIPTA bus hub to the station. That alone saved more than $400,000 a year. He eventually had the DOT take over maintenance of the station, having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to break an existing long-term contract. Gina Raimondo appointed him director of the DOT in early 2015. Ridership at Wickford Junction was rising before the pandemic The quarterly numbers culled by the Department of Transportation and MBTA reflected the low ridership.īut with millions of state and federal dollars invested, the project was too big to fail. It was a tough sell for commuters, when gas was $2 a gallon and the train trip to Boston took nearly an hour and 40 minutes. Looking at history: How Interstate 95 became integral to life in Rhode Island The art: stained glass embedded on the front side of the station and a replica of an old train signal adjacent to Route 102. The state’s contribution was an $8-million bond (plus interest costs) toward the total price tag It had to kick in another $315,000 for “art” mandated by state law for construction at all public buildings. For the first five years, it cost taxpayers $56,000 a month just to maintain the mammoth - and largely empty - facility. It was a festive event, featuring the North Kingstown High School band playing "Anchors Aweigh." Officials didn’t know at the time that the hundreds who showed up for the dedication in the parking garage would be the largest number of visitors on any given day for years.
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