Minutes before the planned vote on the largest service cut in RIPTA history, Gov. Dan McKee sent a letter to RIPTA’s board. It read, “I believe in the value of public transit and the critical role it plays on our most important routes, helping Rhode Islanders get to and from work, school, and medical appointments every day.” Yet, instead of fixing his $10 million budget gap that will strand tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders, McKee writes that “we must right-size RIPTA.”

McKee’s argument — pointing to the 25% ridership decrease compared to a decade ago — ignores a fundamental principle: ridership is directly proportional to service. From 2022 to 2023, RIPTA’s fixed-route service hours decreased from 741,612 to 538,795, a 27% decrease in service across a single year that crippled RIPTA’s ability to recover ridership post-COVID. People choose to ride the bus if the service is fast, convenient, and reliable, and 25% of RIPTA riders chose other means of travel because RIPTA was forced to cut its services’ convenience and reliability.

What McKee’s assertion ignores is that the inverse of this is also true. In the few recent cases where RIPTA has improved service, it has had incredible successes. The #72 saw increased headways from every 30 to 20 minutes and an extension in length and operating hours; as a result, its current ridership is 125% of pre-COVID levels. The #14’s rerouting for better connections in Warwick and introduction of Sunday service — which McKee’s cuts will now eliminate — caused its ridership to reach 147% of pre-COVID levels.

If ridership matches service, what is RIPTA’s “right size”? If we asked the president of the University of Rhode Island, the president of Miriam Hospital, the R.I. Manufacturers Association, R.I. Hospitality Association, Housing Network of Rhode Island, the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, The Providence Foundation, or Hasbro — which plans to relocate out of state “prioritizing convenience to public transit”— RIPTA’s “right size” is absolutely not smaller. So why is McKee working to dismantle this essential service that many Rhode Island residents, businesses, and colleges and universities rely on?

The governor’s answer: his “duty to every taxpayer footing the bill.” RIPTA’s remaining budget gap for fiscal 2026 is approximately $10 million. Under McKee’s leadership, taxpayers footed the bill for $15.6M on tax breaks for Citizens Bank, $10.3 million on TF Green Airport’s big blue signs, and $6.8 million for the Washington Bridge’s on-call tow trucks — costing taxpayers $21,000 per vehicle towed. Apparently, McKee is exempt from his duty to all taxpayers when his corporate lobbyist friends ask him to use your tax dollars to fund their projects or their big tax breaks.

McKee then cites RIPTA’s “fares [being] unchanged for 15 years.” That’s because fare increases cause significant ridership losses — some estimates suggest a 5% ridership decrease for every 10% increase in fares — diminishing the paltry revenue gains from fare increases: $1 million to 2 million at most, according to RIPTA’s efficiency study, and nowhere close enough to solving RIPTA’s fiscal cliff. Public transportation is a public good, and should be treated like other popular public goods — libraries, public schools and highways — which are not meant to generate revenue. You don’t ask a library patron to pay for checking out a book or an elementary student to pay for their second-grade teacher’s salary. RIPTA should be no different.

Fare increases would only worsen the governor’s other complaint: empty buses. Even if we ignore the fact that a bus may not be at its fullest precisely when McKee sees it, we don’t close our roads at 7 p.m. because they are “empty.” Riders will choose public transit if they know they can depend on it — both during the 5 p.m. rush, and at 9 p.m. due to unexpected work needs. This is particularly evident in the #14’s increasing in ridership 47% from pre-COVID after gaining new service just one day of the week.

Instead of accepting the findings of his $400,000 efficiency study — that RIPTA is run efficiently compared to peer agencies and cannot avoid service cuts without additional funding — McKee doubles down on his austerity and makes excuses to avoid funding the essential service that our students, workers, and Washington Bridge commuters need and deserve. The overwhelming business opposition makes it clear: McKee’s service cuts will wrong-size RIPTA, compromising our state’s economy, and competitiveness, for generations to come.

State Sen. Tiara Mack is a Democrat representing the 6th District in Providence, a resident of Mount Hope and a frequent user of RIPTA.