Trump Stalls RIPTA’s Electric Bus Expansion on Aquidneck Island
The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority has been working to build a greener fleet for more than a decade but federal funding has created hurdles to the process
March 23, 2026
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PROVIDENCE—The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) planned to introduce battery-electric buses to operate on Aquidneck Island in the spring of this year, but federal funding for the project is held up by the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump inherited an “unprecedented backlog” of unobligated U.S. Department of Transportation grants when he took office in 2025.
One of those grants belongs to RIPTA. The transit agency’s CEO, Christopher Durand, told House Finance subcommittee members on March 10 that he doesn’t know if the funds will be released.
Nearly four years ago, RIPTA announced it would end diesel-powered buses rolling along Aquidneck Island’s streets, following the USDOT’s award of $22.37 million in federal funding through the Biden administration’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant program.
The funds were supposed to help purchase 25 electric buses and build a charging infrastructure in Newport.
The Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant program aimed to support transportation planning and capital projects with local or regional impact in underserved communities.
The Trump administration renamed the grant program to theBetter Utilizing Investments to Leverage Developments. USDOTsaid it’s working to accelerate the distribution of the funds by ripping out “burdensome DEI, Green New Scam, and social justice requirements that Congress deliberately did not mandate.”
“This includes social cost of carbon accounting, pointless greenhouse gas emission reporting and discriminatory DEI language,” a 2025 news release added.
RIPTA has been moving toward a green fleet for more than a decade. The agency began replacing older diesel buses slated for retirement with all-electric, zero-emission buses in 2018, with help from a $10 million allocation from the state’s Volkswagen settlement funds.
It added 14 battery-electric buses to its most frequently used route, the R-Line, which connects Providence and Pawtucket.
Electrifying Aquidneck Island is the agency’s third phase of its bus electrification pilot program, which aims to convert its fleet to zero- or near-zero-emission vehicles.
RIPTA said adding electric buses in Newport and parts of South County will eliminate harmful air pollutants — such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides — from buses.
The agency said the USDOT grant would help it advance a major part of its Rhode Island Transit Master Plan and enable it to support the state in meeting its 2030 target under the Act on Climate.
Phase three of the program is on hold as the administration continues its review of federal grant programs, Cristy Raposo Perry, the deputy chief of communications, wrote in an email.
Durand said, during the meeting, that he believes the grant is one of two in the country that haven’t been released yet. He added that the 2022 grant was set to expire last year, but U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., extended its expiration date by five years.
“There is hope — and there’s fear,” he told the committee.
In a statement sent to ecoRI News, Reed’s office said: “A strong public transportation network is vital for Rhode Islanders and our economy. Senator Reed continues to deliver federal transit funding to match the state’s priorities. He wants to ensure federal funds are geared toward helping RIPTA offer reliable, affordable, and sustainable transportation options that reduce congestion and pollution while enhancing service and mobility.”
The Federal Transit Administration awarded RIPTA $25 million under the Low- or No-Emission grant in 2025 to support the agency’s transition to a “modernized hybrid fleet” by purchasing 25 hybrid buses.
RIPTA officials postponed purchasing the hybrid buses because they haven’t received federal funds to build new charging infrastructure, according to State Rep. Terri Cortvriend, D-Middletown and Portsmouth, who sits on the House Finance Committee and is the chair of the House Finance Subcommittee on Environment and Transportation.
“It’s very frustrating,” Cortvriend said during an interview with ecoRI News. She added: “We have to deal with the Trump presidency, and right now we have no leverage in Congress either.”
USDOT did not respond to ecoRI News’ request for comment.
Trump wants to kill you and boil the planet
as I am a fan of transit, of cleaner transit, and even a fan of the Newport area and this applied at the Trump regime’s holding grants for such things (and bike projects, EV support, small scale solar, wildlife conservation…) I’m having a hard time caring about it just now as our country is reportedly about to wipe out another country and send it back to the stone ages. How do people maintain interest in what is small stuff compared to this monstrous idea that of it happens we cannot live down for the foreseeable future?
Why do the feds have to pay for this? If RI wants and needs this, why shouldn’t we pay for it?
This is such a brain freeze issue. To our local government officials please stay on top of it as the money was awarded and the reasoning is sound. Good luck!