Hello RIPTA supporters,
I have been waiting to gather as much information as possible before sending this report about RIPTA’s financing situation, so that I wouldn’t misrepresent the it.
I am sad to report that right now RIPTA has been left in the cold by the budget. Legislators feel like they have accomplished much by allaying RIPTA’s need to borrow money to buy buses. However, they have done absolutely nothing to fix the crisis in the financing of its operations, which is the real problem. What I hear at the statehouse is that this is the short term solution and they’ll to do the big fix next year when it’s not an election year and not so hard (heard that before).
Unfortunately, RIPTA is looking at a 9 million deficit that is going to cause cash flow problems in December that will make it impossible for the authority to make payroll. Let me be plain, if nothing is done and there are no service cuts as many have promised, RIPTA will have to close its doors in January. That, of course, will not be allowed to happen, and instead there will be massive service cuts and fare increases proposed. There will be very little we can do to stop these cuts, because RIPTA has done everything it can to control costs.
There was some hope that RIPTA could engage in deficit spending to get through the next legislative session when the big fix would come. It is not going to happen, and the people in the general assembly have to be made to understand this fact in these waning days of the legislative session.
Please call your legislator today: You can find who your rep and senator are here
Once you know who they are you can find your Senator’s phone number here and your Representative’shere.