by Don Rhodes, President, RIPTA Riders Alliance
Some of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable people were dealt a serious blow
in the recently released House budget. Disabled and senior Rhode
Islanders are going to be hit with a bus fare hike now expected to start
in January.
Hundreds of seniors and disabled people have given moving testimony over
the past year about how they can’t afford this bus fare hike on their
limited income and will be stuck inside their residences, rarely able to
go out. Advocates had called for the House budget to include money to
prevent the fare hike. RIPTA Riders Alliance is disappointed that the
House budget did not do this.
All the budget does is to reschedule the fare hike — RIPTA had wanted
this fare hike to start this July 1, and the House budget provides only
enough funding to postpone the fare hike by six months (to January
2017), according to the Providence Journal and legislative leaders.
This fare hike will be devastating to Rhode Island’s most vulnerable
seniors and disabled people who rely on public transit. It would be a
travesty for the General Assembly to go home on vacation without
addressing this problem, leaving the fare hike to take effect at the
beginning of next year.
These low-income seniors and disabled people will be left in further
isolation, and isolation increases feelings of depression and other
medical problems. In many cases they will have to cut back on shopping
trips, volunteer work, and visiting friends and family, or squeeze money
elsewhere in their fixed-income budget.
This fare increase on the most vulnerable has already roused
considerable opposition from the wider public, and the General Assembly
cannot shirk its responsibility here. Only about $800,000 more in the
budget was needed to prevent this harmful fare increase from taking
effect, and the General Assembly should pass the bills (H7937 and S2685)
which cancel this fare increase, as Rhode Islanders want.
