Adventures in RIPTA

I still have not bought a car and am going as long as I can without one.

On my second tour of duty in Rhode Island I'm learning much more about RIPTA. I took RIPTA just once in three years at RISD. Between having friends with cars and being in the College Hill bubble, I didn't need the bus.

Last night, I went to a salsa social at The Spot, a yoga studio on Thayer street. Thayer street is my old college stomping grounds, the "hip" (I use this term loosely) strip of bars/restaurants and shops that cater to RISD and Brown students. It's over on the Eastside or Providence, next to the heart of Brown's campus, about two miles from me.

Quick background
I live in the "Armory district" (not a real neighborhood name, I think it's a real estate creation like "South Park Slope" instead of Sunset Park or "East Williamsburg" instead of Bushwick in Brooklyn).

It's the border of the West End (an economically depressed heavily immigrant neighborhood) and Federal Hill, Providence's touristy little Italy). It's a neighborhood in "transition." While it doesn't have the fancy history of the Eastside, there are beautiful homes here that people are buying and fixing up. It makes me think of the brownstones in places like Harlem and BedStuy.

I'll bike past Dexter Park down the street from me and I'll see on one side (mostly) white artsy hipsters playing in the Providence kickball league next to a weekly farmers market. Next to them, there's a regular pick-up soccer game played on a dirt patch of mostly Latinos next to my favorite taco truck.

Getting Over
Thayer street is two miles away and normally I'd bike it, but last night was pretty hot and I didn't want to sweat a storm so I took the bus.

Punch in Google Transit (note, ever since I found this service, I've cracked up every time Google tries to plan rational trips in RIPTA's system. I once wanted to get back from a dance class that ended at 9PM and it told me to take the 7AM bus the next day. Awesome).

Here goes:
























50 minutes?? To go two miles??

Of course, there's a good reason. Kennedy Plaza, the center of the Providence (and Rhode Island) public transit universe, is about the midpoint of my apartment and Thayer street so I have to take a bus inbound to Kennedy, than another bus outbound to Thayer. I just walked the second leg rather than wait 30 minutes.











RIPTA doesn't just serve Providence, but the entire state. Kennedy Plaza is the hub where every (or nearly every) bus line meets. A system that has to take into account the entire state, might sacrifice some local convenience. Like being able take just one bus from one side of town to the other (I really tried to write that without a trace of sarcasm, honest).

All roads lead to Kennedy Plaza:

























Of course, there's possibly something much more intentional at work here and that's the whole eastside/westside division which I've been getting a crash course on. I'm quickly getting the sense that Rhode Island is very provincial and that Providence (plus Central Falls plus Pawtucket and maybe some other nearby towns) is the colored chocolate chip of a very white cookie.

Providence itself is cut in half by 95:











To the west of 95, is the West End, Olneyville and Manton Ave. To the south of 95, South Providence and Elmwood. These are Providence's low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods. To the east of 95 is downtown and the Eastside which includes College Hill.

Peter Hocking calls 95 a "psychological barrier" which is a perfect term for it.

On the surface, it seems ridiculous that I can't take a bus that runs down Broadway, one of Providence's main thoroughfares, directly to one of Providence's "hotter" shopping and nightlife destinations. But then that bus, before coming to my apartment, runs down Manton Ave, a neighborhood notorious for gang violence and its housing projects. I doubt there's huge incentive for the city and eastside residents and college administrators to make that route more direct.

I'm not surprised at the compartmentalization/segregation, I grew up in New York City, in the 80s and 90s. There are tons of people in the outer boroughs who consider Manhattan a whole another universe. I grew up in Park Slope and went to camp with kids from Bed Stuy and Flatbush. We lived, maybe a mile or two apart, but in completely different universes.

I think I'm adjusting to the microcosmic scale it happens here in Providence. I walk two blocks and I'm in a different neighborhood with a different reputation. The eastside is two miles away from me and it's the "other side of town". I can't take one bus to Thayer street. Providence has about as many people as Flushing and, but it's cut in more ways than I can count.

Can't we just be one proud city?

Or maybe I should just get a car and stop bitching.