New RIPTA route to South County Commons free for students

02/20/09 - The University of Rhode Island created a new Rhode Island Public Transit Authority bus route, known as Route 212, that will take students to the South County Commons and Wakefield Mall on weekends for no charge.The route took effect Feb. 17 and it will run hourly from 5:57 p.m. to midnight Thursday to Saturday. On Sundays, the bus will run until 12:45 a.m., according to a press release.

The bus will also stop along Route 108 in Wakefield. According to an article in the South County Independent, the bus will connect to fare-required routes such as Providence, Narragansett and Westerly.

Students and faculty will be able to take this particular bus route for free when they show their university identification cards.

URI has a partnership with RIPTA and the Chamber of Commerce. Interim Director at the Chamber of Commerce Lisa Roy said the university was campaigning to have this done because there are students living on campus without cars that rely on RIPTA to go places. Popular spots include those in the South County Commons, such as Entertainment Cinemas or Applebees, and the Wakefield Mall.

URI Business Analyst Lucas Lussier added that parking can be poor at the South County Commons and providing buses will reduce traffic in this particular area. He said it supports the university's idea of going green.

"[We] wanted to give students something to do," Interim Director of the Chamber of Commerce, Lisa Roy said.

Lussier, who acts as a liaison between the university and RIPTA, said it was his idea to have this route after asking students their opinions.

"[We wanted to] provide resident students the opportunity to grab a bite to eat at Applebee's or go to the mall," Lussier said.

Some students said they felt access to Shaw's and CVS would be beneficial.

"It's not like going to the Providence Place Mall [because] you could buy groceries," freshman Stephen Maris said.

Lussier said the university has been working on making the route happen for about a year. Lussier said he hopes the route will extend even further in the future and provide more bus routes for students.

"If I knew about that and didn't have a car, I'd go," freshman Matt Lombardi said.

Lussier said funding for the bus routes is through Parking Services and the university has also terminated certain routes to accommodate for the new Route 212. Because Lussier was not in charge of the funding, he did not know the exact amount the routes cost.

Lussier said every year the university sees which routes are more successful than others. If buses repeatedly have a limited amount of people on them, they tend to get rid of the route all together.

The Route 211 night service bus that took students from their residence halls to the student parking lot is no longer available. Lussier said there were only about two people using this bus. He said rather than wasting money by keeping this route, they put the money toward Route 212.

Lussier said URI had a similar bus route in the past as was part of Route 66, which goes from URI to Providence. The route picked up students from downtown Providence late at night.

Lussier said they "had issues" with the route and discontinued it.