ROUNDTABLE

The Secret Lives of Bus Stops

(And an update from RIPTA on their bus stop/shelter inventory project)

A Main Street bus stop is a gateway to a district – residents, visitors, and employees pass by on their way in, out and around our communities. Of course, we all want to have the most frequent transit service with unique and beautiful shelters at every stop! And why wouldn’t we think that it would be super simple to just put in a new bus shelter?

For our February Roundtable we invited RIPTA’s Long Range Planner Julia Evelyn to discuss everything you never knew about bus stops and shelters in RI Main Street districts (you’ll be surprised!) and get an update on their ongoing project to inventory all the current stops and shelters (did you know there are approximately 3,600 of them in Rhode Island?!) Find out how the RIPTA team is planning for upgrades and repairs and also what you can do to get involved and improve transit amenities in your neighborhood by watching the recording of this informative workshop.

ALL OF YOUR BUS STOP QUESTIONS ANSWERED

RIPTA recently took over ownership of all of Rhode Island’s bus stops, and over the past year they’ve embarked on a new project to inventory and improve all bus stops statewide. Here’s what you need to know!

Goals of the Bus Inventory Project:

Bus stops are the entry point into our bus system and RIPTA has made it a priority to improve the rider experience by ensuring that our stops are comfortable, accessible and safe understanding that even small improvements can make a big difference. With limited resources available to them, RIPTA is careful to make data-informed decisions to strategically place bus stop amenities to serve the most riders in the highest need communities. This is what the Bus Inventory Project is all about.

After two summers of hard work on the part of RIPTA staff and interns, the Inventory Project is 75% complete. As part of the project they’re visiting every stop to collect information on the amenities of every stop and what condition they’re in, while also checking on the visibility of the stops and whether or not there’s navigable routes to access them and more. In both inventorying current bus stops and considering future stops they also evaluate such factors as levels of ridership, existing infrastructure and proximity to important destinations such as schools and medical facilities.

Image courtesy of RIPTA

DID YOU KNOW that Rhode Island has over 3600 Bus Stops including 350 shelters? RIPTA wants to increase the number of stops with shelters, and increase the number of other amenities such as benches.

However, any kind of new bus stop installation is not as simple as you might think. Let’s look at what’s involved in Installing a New Bus Shelter:

New Bus Shelters are Expensive

A new bus shelter has a TOTAL cost of approximately $50,000. The cost of the shelter (varies depending on the size) with key amenities such as a bench and light fixture is around $20,000. And then the cost of site design, engineering and lighting is another $30,000.

DID YOU KNOW that every new shelter needs a new concrete pad of a particular depth for the shelter to be bolted into for it to be safe?

It takes more than money to install a new shelter. It also takes a lot of TIME. WHY?

• PERMITTING TIME
  Every shelter requires some form of permitting. Funding for new shelters comes from federal funding, and that requires NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) permitting which investigates the impact such a project might have on everything from green space and wetlands to preservation. This is a process that takes several months. Just installing a new bench could require approval from City Council. There’s usually MOU’s that need to be signed with municipalities or property owners, putting into writing what if anything they might contribute. This takes time too.
• INSTALLATION TIME:
  It takes 6 months for a vendor to fabricate and ship a new shelter. In that time, RIPTA needs to do site design and engineering. Because they’re a public agency, they have to take projects out to bid, a timely process on its own. And then, assuming there’s no unforeseen delays, RIPTA finally moves on to construction and installation work. From beginning to end, we are lucky if all of this can be completed in one year.

What about Art Shelters? 

Bus Shelter Rehabilitation Project

So you want a new Bus Stop on your Main Street or report problems to your existing shelter or Bus Stop?

IMPORTANT TIP!