The R.I. Department of Transportation and the R.I. Public Transit Authority have agreed to seek public feedback on three options to overhaul Providence’s downtown bus system.
The announcement earlier this month that a series of public hearings will be scheduled came more than a year and a half after transportation officials unveiled their preferred option, a multihub bus system that would divide the main depot at Kennedy Plaza into three hubs.
That idea is still in the mix but now has competition from a developer-backed proposal to move the central bus hub to an indoor transit center on Dorrance Street that would include housing and retail. A third option to be considered will be to keep the main hub Kennedy Plaza, but with improved security.
Transportation officials have not said when the public hearings will be held.