Will A Free Ride Change Rhode Islanders?
No, It Won’t.
The Attleboro/Providence commuter rail was a lifeline throughout my twenties. Too broke to buy and maintain a car, I’d purchase my round-trip ticket home at least once a month, riding south on jam-packed cars full of commuters doing an unfathomable hour-long ride in — and out again — each day. My mother, waiting in the parking lot in Attleboro, would watch the passengers disembark with great interest.
“They all look so angry, doing that commute every day,” she’d note as I took the wheel from her for the drive back through Providence to southern Rhode Island.
Throughout my years in Boston, I dreamed of a day when the Commuter Rail would go beyond Providence to the still-populous reaches of the southern part of the Ocean State. In 2010, the dream came true when the T.F. Green station opened. It was followed by the much-anticipated opening of Wickford Junction station in 2012.
Well, the opening was much-anticipated by my family and I, anyway. Fast-forward five years and few others seem to be riding the train, leading the Rhode Island Department of Transportation to provide free travel within Lil’ Rhody for the remainder of 2017 in the hopes of getting Rhode Islanders hooked on the rails so they’ll pay the fares.
Sure, the state without a budget can certainly spare $102,000 on this quixotic quest to convert car-loving Rhode Islanders to rail riders.
If you detect sarcasm, you’re right. I’m an avowed advocate of public transportation despite its many faults and frustrations, but I don’t think Rhode Islanders will ever fully embrace intra-state travel via the rails. While some parents may take stir-crazy children on a “purple line” train ride to Providence on a rainy October day this fall, there are better ways to make the line more appealing beyond making it free for a few months.
Here are a few of my ideas.
- Run the trains on weekends. I’ve had a car for the last few years, so I drive down for my visits now. But it was frustrating to be able to get to Wickford Junction on a Friday night only to have to get a ride to Providence or Attleboro on Sunday. It’s also annoying if a Boston friend joins us for a South County beach day, but doesn’t want to stay overnight. It doesn’t have to be regular service — just send a few cars down on Saturdays and Sundays. Maybe I’d even leave the car at home myself.
This would help to… - Make the Commuter Rail a Tourist Train. The cities and towns served by Massachusetts’ Newburyport/Rockport line have done a stellar job of this, using weekend service to attract those who don’t want to sit on Route 128 to visit their attractions.
Ipswich has a shuttle bus that will take tourists from the train station to Crane’s Beach or some antique shops and a couple of clam shacks. While South County’s attractions are a bit farther from Wickford Junction, it could be done to attract Bostonians to Rhode Island for a day trip. Get ’em to Wickford, charge another $30 to get to Narragansett and you’re supporting an industry that’s vital to the state and attracting car-free riders from Providence and Boston to the state’s southern attractions.
Conversely, running trains for special events could shuttle South County residents into Providence for popular events like WaterFire and the like.
The main problem with the idea is that Rhode Island has thousands of residents who view giving up their cars — even for select trips — as a loss of autonomy. While Rhode Island has a system of buses, those than can afford cars often don’t use them because parking is readily available pretty much everywhere they want to go. This is so much a part of the state’s culture that Rhode Island Monthly published a piece in which a writer traversed the Ocean State in one day via the bus system in 2007.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts congressman Mike Capuano’s campaign picked up the tab on Boston’s Fairmount Line for two weeks. Hey, how’d that go, Boston Globe?
According to the MBTA, ridership on the line increased by 25 percent the first week of service and 44 percent in the second week, but returned to the same ridership levels once the free ride was over.
If a similar program didn’t convince the residents of a Boston neighborhood to swap the bus or their wheels for the rails, it’s going to take a lot more for Rhode Island to change its transportation culture.
