The opening day of Providence Place has been on James R. Capaldi’s mind for two years, ever since his office at the Department of Transportation was called upon to create roadways to get shoppers efficiently in and out of the mall. Capaldi said the results of more than $20 million in construction and countless hours planning are promising so far.
The chief engineer on the Providence Place ramps said there were no highway-related problems or any major impacts on local roads since Providence Place opened its doors on Aug. 20.
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“There were no backups on the highway at all, hardly any on the Providence Place road and little backup on Francis Street,” said Capaldi. “The first weekend went very well.”
Capaldi said his department was concerned about the impact of the opening weekend, because of several factors. The first was the Convention Center was hosting the Antique Road Show on the Saturday of the opening weekend, which was expected to draw 14,000 people. Another concern was the scheduled Water Fire also on Saturday.
Fortunately the Antique Road Show didn’t draw as many people as expected and Water Fire was canceled because of rain.
Ultimately, the weekend was busy for downtown Providence and a good test for the roadways, said Capaldi. He quickly added that the true impact Providence Place will have on the city will not be known until all the stores are open at the mall.
“People have been saying that the mall is currently 30 percent open, but the truth is it’s only about 20 percent based on the volume of square footage opened,” he said. “I think that had an impact on how many people visited the mall. Once it is fully operating that will be a good test for us.”
Capaldi said his team at the DOT is ready to take on any crowd, even holiday shoppers.
On opening weekend, the DOT had extra staff on hand and employees on-call. They had secured a helicopter that would fly over trouble areas of highways and roads to determine what should be done to alleviate congestion.
Instead the helicopters never got off the ground and most on-call staff stayed home.
While automobile traffic was much lighter than expected, foot traffic was surprisingly dense, Capaldi noted.
“The mall was full but with a lot of pedestrians,” he said. “There were more pedestrians than the sidewalks could handle. The mall sidewalks were not ready for them and because of the hotel construction nearby, the sidewalks across the street were not ready.”
He said the DOT put up yellow tape and signs to bring some order to the route pedestrians took, as well as to avoid jaywalking.
Capaldi said pedestrian and automobile traffic in the city will be addressed in coming months with the completion of a ramp that will take southbound traffic to the road created for Providence Place, formerly call Kinsley Avenue. Currently, the southbound traffic going to the mall is being dumped off on Memorial Boulevard and Francis Street.
“That ramp will alleviate any congestion from the mall at Memorial and Francis. Instead those streets can be used to handle event traffic, pedestrians and normal traffic,” he said. Capaldi expects that ramp to be completed in June.
Also in the works is the addition of 25 cameras along the highways so the DOT can monitor traffic and make adjustments when there is congestion. The DOT is now using just two cameras.
“Once all the cameras are in place we will have great visibility of the interstate from Route 10 through the city and north of the city,” Capaldi added.
