First Person: Using Public Transit During One of the Coldest Weeks of the Year
How one ecoRI reporter got around Rhode Island on foot and by bus
January 13, 2025
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I take public transit pretty frequently, even though I am lucky enough to afford a car. Mostly, my transit use happens around Providence, when I would like to avoid walking up and down College Hill or crossing highway overpasses to get across town. But this past week, I didn’t have my car, so I thought I would try to get around just using RIPTA or walking and write about what the experience was like.*
*Disclaimer: I was out of town on Monday, so I only used public transit Tuesday through Friday.
Tuesday
After flying into Boston the night before, I took the MBTA’s Commuter Rail to Providence Tuesday morning. I love the train. Many of my friends and my partner live in Boston, so I’m a frequent flyer on the Providence/Stoughton line. Even though the train was delayed twice while I was on it, I was able to get a head start on work, which was great.
Walking out of the train station, I had the realization that I was going to have to make my way around Providence and Rhode Island during a polar vortex. When it’s warmer, I love the walk from the station to ecoRI’s office in the Jewelry District, but shuffling through the office buildings in downtown’s makeshift wind tunnels made the chill seem worse.
Regardless, I made it, worked from the office, and ended up walking 40-ish minutes home, with a stop at Superior Court on the way. The bus I had wanted to take was late, and moving around felt warmer and easier somehow than waiting in the dark at the bus stop.
Wednesday
After working from home in the morning, I walked over to the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Research Center to do some reading and comb through photos and records for a retrospective I am working on.
When work was over, I had a hair appointment I needed to run to, and the nearest bus stop for me was on Wickenden Street. I waited almost no time and hopped on the 92 line to get to Federal Hill. Although I know that feelings about the trolley-looking buses are mixed, I kind of love them. I was cozy and only had to walk four minutes on either end to get to my appointment.
From Federal Hill, I took the 92 (and I think I had the same bus driver as before) back to the East Side, got off at the grocery shop, and then hopped back on another bus about half an hour later to get home.
Thursday
I knew that my schedule was going to be a challenge on Thursday, because I had to leave Providence and head to East Bay.
I had a writing contest to judge in Middletown at noon, but I had to leave the house at 9:30 and take two buses to get there on time. Like my Wednesday rides, there wasn’t much of a wait, but once I got to Middletown, I had to walk 25 minutes in below-freezing weather to get to my destination.
I spent a lot of the day at a coffee shop/cafe I’d never been to before. I thought I had used the Transit App correctly and planned to catch a 60 bus going north that would take me to a school committee meeting in Barrington. But either I was very wrong or the timing changed, and I missed the bus and had to wait 45 minutes for the next run.
Instead of getting to the meeting really early, I got there five minutes before it started, which still got me a seat near an outlet — I am grateful for that. The toughest part of the trip was the 25-minute walk, in the dark and the cold, to get to Barrington Middle School from the nearest 60 stop, which led me to consider Uber for the ride home.
So, yes, when I stayed at the meeting past 9 p.m., I decided to avoid the 25-minute walk in the dark and hour-long, two-bus journey back to Providence and spent $22 and 22 minutes on the ride home.
(Note: Although that is not a super cheap ride, it doesn’t break the bank for me, but it does for a lot of people who don’t have vehicles or can’t drive. Many people would have had to take the bus back.)
Friday
I woke up glad that I didn’t have to travel out of the city, just across it, to the Community College of Rhode Island campus for a Green Jobs Fair. What would usually be a 15-minute drive was two buses and an hour using RIPTA.
After the fair was over, I hopped on the bus to get to the office. I had to walk back to the courthouse at the end of the day and ended up taking a bus back up the hill (who wants to strain their calves that much?) to get home.
But! My transit journey wasn’t over yet. I still had to get back to Massachusetts to get my car. So, I planned to take the commuter rail back to Boston. Emphasis on planned. My roommate graciously gave me a ride to the station to get me there on time, only for the train to have mechanical issues and a long delay… I used the time in the station to my advantage to write this first-person account.
My takeaways
Transit is a safe, relatively inexpensive way to get from Point A to Point B. Although you lose the stress of paying for gas and getting hit by a car (I really don’t love aggressive drivers), relying on transit becomes a whole new set of stressors: What do you do if your bus is late or never comes? Can I physically handle reaching my final destination if the bus can’t get me all the way there? What do I do while I wait?
The cons, I felt, were waiting for the bus in the cold; missing a bus and having to wait a while for the next one to come; increased travel times compared to driving a personal vehicle.
The pros: Low cost — I spent $12 on transit tickets, which was a lot less than what gas and parking downtown would have cost overall; more exercise, as taking the bus forces you to walk around more; and being able to catch up on news, answer emails and get work done while sitting on the train and the bus.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for those who get around the state without a car, and just four days of (almost) doing it have made those feelings even stronger. If you want to read more about what car-less life is like, I suggest you look through the Rhody Riders series ecoRI News published in 2023.
Back in the early days of bike advocacy, I wrote an op ed about the benefits of bikes and mass transit. In my research for that piece, I found a survey showing that at least 42% of Rhode Islanders would never ever consider using bus or other mass transit. That mindset really drives the continuing disinvestment in the bus system —- which frankly IS unresponsive to new work schedules and new population centers and which relies on the old hub and spoke model that fails to make connections outside the downtown hub. You can’t beat the $2 fare that takes you anyplace in the state — as long as it’s on the route, runs when you need it, and isn’t subject to unannounced and inexplicable delays! While we’re dealing with RIDOT’s horrible maintenance and management of highways, can’t we siphon off a tiny bit of funding to support the alternatives?
Try getting from Pawtucket to Woonsocket by bus. There is no direct route without taking a bus to Providence or perhaps jumping on two busses.
When I lived in Warwick and worked in Pawtucket, I was taking the #1 bus when I could. On occasion I missed a bus due to my timing, but I also found not all drivers stuck to the schedule and was leaving the Shaw Market on 117 a few minutes earlier. However, I did enjoy the ride and not having to deal with traffic and got a lot of reading done.
Now that I live in Burrillville, I have not tried to bus it and making bus connections to get to my destinations. I wish their was a more direct Blackstone Valley route that included the northwest corner.
On a good day, I can drive from East Greenwich to Pawtucket in a half hour. One day I tried commuting between East Greenwich and Pawtucket by bus, and it took about 2 hours one way. Of course, it is possible to spend over two hours in traffic between these two destinations.
This article prompted me to pause and reflect. In my younger years I lived and worked in New York City, Greater Boston and the Chicago area, where transit systems (commuter rail, subway/elevated, bus) generally got you around the city and in and out from the outskirts more quickly and more cheaply than a car. This makes me wonder how a city’s population density and sprawl might effect operating costs and route logistics. Providence’s density is only 10K ppl per sq. mi. (across 18 sq. mi.). How does this compare to the cities I mentioned?
New York: 29K ppl per sq. mi. (across 300 sq. mi.); Boston: 14K ppl per sq. mi. (across 48 sq. mi.); Chicago: 12K ppl per sq. mi. (across 227 sq. mi.). People in Los Angeles and Houston are more reliant on cars and highway infrastructure. Los Angleles: 8K ppl per sq. mi. (across 4,000 sq. mi.); Houston: 3.5K ppl per sq. mi. (across 640 sq. mi.).
Then there is Washington D.C., with a similar population density to Providence and a respectable public transportation system. 11K ppl per sq. mi (across 68 sq. mi.). Surely, Washington has a federal funding advantage. What is the economic reality? If we take into account the average household income and municipal tax revenues, what might we notice? All of this causes me to pause and reflect on city planning and economic consciousness.
Really interesting story.
I once tried to take the bus to work downtown from the East Side on a Saturday afternoon – and the bus only comes once an hour. I’ve also waited downtown for a bus back to the East Side outside of 9 to 5 and again, a long wait. If you travel during the week during business hours, it’s every 20 minutes. If you don’t, you’re out of luck.
One thing that stood out for me was having to walk for 25 minutes in the dark. Not that I think you’re going to get attacked in Barrington but you could easily fall, slip on the ice in bad weather.
“Two buses and an hour” hits hard for this car-free Providence woman. City and state government need to think harder about reducing congestion, boosting ridership and improving rapid travel via public transit here.
My trips to Olneyville (gun sense advocacy) and to the West End (election worker) from my East Side apartment take forever on RIPTA. Trips to the Zoo (R-Line) and RI Hospital Outpatient (RIPTA 1) are direct and swifter.
What the author takes for granted is her able bodied status. Many of those using public transportation are elderly and disabled. Imagine doubling the walk times, and feeling a physical impact of the effort used to get there, or of standing around in the cold, or in the heat of summer. And then add in the factor that one is getting to medical appointments, which if one is late, may be cancelled by doctors unable to wait. Finally, take the $12 a week times four and come up with $48 out of a SSI income of $697 a month. Without getting into the details of subsided rent (30% of income) and inadequate food stamps, or if they have a 1/2 fare disability pass, this is still a considerable expense.