People are shown outside the Kennedy Plaza Intermodal Transportation Plaza in Providence on the afternoon of Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Christopher Shea/Rhode island Current)
The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s Intermodal Transportation Center in Providence’s Kennedy Plaza has never had restrooms reserved for exclusive use by employees since it opened in 2002. That should change by the end of the year.
The agency’s board of directors voted 7-0 to approve plans to reconfigure space that formerly housed a coffee shop inside the depot to give staff their own restrooms at a cost of $454,356.
“We simply can’t miss an opportunity to have these amenities,” Interim CEO Christopher Durand told the board. “Wherever we can have a bathroom for all of our employees, we need to do so.”
Board member Heather Schey was not present.
The new restrooms will be built by Providence-based Maron Construction Co. adjacent to the existing public bathrooms. RIPTA expects to have the employee restrooms constructed by the end of 2024, according to its request for proposal issued in August.
Bus drivers need a private space to take a break, union president Walter Melillo told Rhode Island Current.
“Sometimes they encounter people using drugs,” Melillo, who heads the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 618, said in an interview before the board meeting.
On Monday, the city of Providence announced police arrested 22 people at Kennedy Plaza for drug distribution following a months-long investigation. The arrests did not come up during board discussion, but Durand told Rhode Island Current after the meeting he was grateful to the city for “trying to improve the overall atmosphere downtown and getting people the help they need.”
New employee bathrooms are also just more convenient for drivers who have a schedule to follow, Melillo said.
“They deal with a lot of traffic and congested roads — making it so recovery time isn’t as lengthy,” he said. “The more bathrooms you have for drivers, the better it is for the employee.”
The cafe inside the Kennedy Plaza Intermodal Transportation Plaza has been closed since before the pandemic. It is eyed as the site for new Rhode island public Transit Authority employee restrooms. (Christopher Shea/Rhode island Current)
Though he voted in favor of the new bathrooms, board member Robert Kells questioned why RIPTA should go through with the new construction if the agency intends to move out of Kennedy Plaza at some point as it seeks to build a new transit center somewhere in downtown Providence.
“Even if we completely vacate, which I don’t think would happen, we still have this asset,” Durand said of the Intermodal Transportation Center.
RIPTA’s Board of Directors in January approved a nearly $16.9 million contract with Next Wave Partners to start design work for a mixed-use bus hub. The new building would offer a number of amenities not offered at Kennedy Plaza such as larger indoor waiting areas, expanded restrooms, digital screens to track bus arrivals and departures, and WiFi.
Agency administrators narrowed down the new Providence bus hub location down to seven sites in May, with the intention to narrow down its final three sites in July and announce a winning location in August. But no final site was ever selected.
“It was a bigger bite than we expected,” Durand said in an interview.
Finalists for the new transit center are expected to be determined in October, he added.
RIPTA struggled to attract new bus driver applicants over the past couple years. But it’s not having trouble lately following a 16.7% hike in starting wages approved by the board in February, along with the agency agreeing to pay for new hires to get a Commercial Driver’s License permit.
The restroom talk wasn’t relegated to just Kennedy Plaza during RIPTA’s meeting Thursday, as the board also voted to spend $375,000 toward temporary restroom trailers outside the Pawtucket-Central Falls transit center. The facility opened in January 2023 for train and bus service, but still awaits construction on passenger facilities.
At present, passengers who need to use the bathroom can only use portable facilities — which RIPTA has rented on a monthly basis. Thursday’s vote was to cover costs through the estimated completion of the passenger building, which is slated to finish in January 2026.
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