PROVIDENCE – The R.I. Public Transit Authority has begun pre-construction work in downtown Providence, preparing for the Downtown Transit Connector.
The high-frequency bus transit corridor will extend from the hospital district of South Providence to Providence Station and eventually will include six dedicated stops with shelters and digital displays. Initial work this year will focus between Westminster and Point streets.
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The $17 million project is intended to provide cross-downtown bus service at 5-minute intervals.
It will include dedicated lanes for buses and bicycles, painted on to the roadways. Some parking spots for autos will be removed as a result.
Traffic signals will be upgraded to extend the “green” light for buses, and timing will be adjusted to improve flow of traffic, according to RIPTA, which is coordinating the project.
Eight existing RIPTA bus routes will be extended to create the high-frequency corridor. By 2019, the buses will connect the hospital district, the Jewelry District, downtown and Kennedy Plaza and Providence Station, which has the hub for Amtrak and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority service.
The project is being funded through a federal grant received by the city in 2014 and RIPTA.
On Thursday, the Providence Planning Department and RIPTA will host a meeting focused on some of the changes coming to Kennedy Plaza, which will have one of the six stops for the cross-downtown buses. The meeting is from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the municipal building at 444 Westminster St.
Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at macdonald@pbn.com.
