Transit & Tourism
For Evan Smith, President & CEO of Discover Newport, ‘Transit and Tourism’ is about two things … (1) improving the visitor experience, and (2) reducing auto congestion that for years has frustrated visitors and residents alike during Newport’s peak travel season.
Tourism is big business and Newport County sees a lot of it – more than 8.6 million visitors in 2023, up about 1 million since 2019.
That’s why Discover Newport partnered with RIPTA in 2021 to invest in free Hop-On-Hop-Off trolly service using RIPTA’s route #67 line with service to Bellevue Avenue, Memorial Boulevard and including stops at popular destinations such as the Cliff Walk, Newport Mansions and the International Tennis Hall of Fame. And over the last four years, the free seasonal service has become increasingly popular, growing from about 98,000 passengers in 2021 to a record-breaking 178,000 in 2024.
“We’ve seen steady growth since the start of this service and this season was outstanding. The impact and value of this partnership is a step toward impacting mobility and sustainability in the city for both visitors and locals alike during the busy summer and fall season”, said Smith.
So, it was only fitting that we took the #67 to grab coffee at the Breakers Cafe, with Newport Mansions CEO Trudy Coxe (also a longtime Grow Smart RI Board member) and Kevin O’Leary, director of marketing for the Mansions.
Both Smith and Coxe say they’re pleased with the steady growth in the number of visitors opting to use the transit service, which has been helped by the Mansions and Tennis Hall of Fame also promoting the free transit line for events they host. Still, they believe there’s potential to host many more visitors without the downside of creating more traffic congestion, but the overall transit system needs improvement in convenience and service frequency.
“If you want to keep the tourism industry strong, you should be investing in ways to improve public transportation to and around Newport because this is the center of tourism for the State of Rhode Island”, said Coxe.
For Smith, he’s excited about the new ideas to move more people without cars. “We can do this”, he said. “This isn’t rocket science, but we have to support it – we need to give it the funding needed to be successful”.
So why should people support better funding for transit? “We’ve come from a point in history where we measured success by building more cars and highways. I think as a society we now need to change that. We need to make the public transit experience more engaging, easier to use and affordable” Smith said.
View more Rhodies-In-Transit HERE.
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Learn more about Rhode Island’s Transit Master Plan, a data-driven, publicly-vetted and adopted vision for getting more Rhodies where they’re going when they need to get there, conveniently, affordably and with dignity.