PROVIDENCE — Unlike the past couple of meetings, few members of the public attended the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s board meeting Thursday afternoon.

Whereas people had lined up outdoors at two meetings held in August, most there to plead against massive cuts to service, at RIPTA’s September board meeting the tone was muted.

The few members of the public who attended once again criticized the cuts and some of the board’s leadership, including board chair and Rhode Island Department of Transportation director Peter Alviti.

The agency’s fiscal situation, a deficit that ultimately settled to about $5 million and led to the service changes, only came up once, during discussion about whether the agency should hire a lobbyist for the next legislative session.

Board member Normand Benoit asked whether there was a desire to pursue a lobbyist and Alviti replied that CEO Chris Durand should come to the next board meeting with a strategy for how a lobbyist could benefit the agency.

“Rather than ready, shoot, aim, let’s ready, aim, shoot,” Alviti said.

“That’s always better,” Benoit agreed.

The service cuts, modified to lessen their impacts on riders but still some of the most significant in the agency’s history, will take effect Saturday.

“Right out of the gate with the weekend cuts,” Providence Streets Coalition’s Dylan Giles told ecoRI News.

Forty-six routes will see decreased frequency, removed spans, or eliminated weekend service. Although there aren’t cuts to an entire route, as first proposed, segments of routes will be cut.

Durand told ecoRI News that RIPTA staff had been visiting bus stops on affected routes all week. Service changes have also been on the agency’s website and will automatically update in the Transit App (the application riders can use for trip planning) as of Saturday.

In addition to discussing a potential lobbyist, the board approved the purchase of 25 accessible vans for the agency’s paratransit program RIde. The contract will cost the agency $6.1 million and be split 80% to 20% between federal and state funding.

The agency’s board also approved a three-year contract with Microsoft for about $545,000, but delayed a vote on an updated safety plan. The delay comes the same day a RIPTA bus crashed in Jamestown, although Durand said the two things were not related.

Durand could not provide any updates on the crash, but The Providence Journal reported the driver and two passengers had been injured in the incident.