Last issue, we spoke with Bonnie Nickerson, director of the PVD planning department, about their future plans for our fair city. One of their plans for the spring is to change bus routes and traffic patterns around Kennedy Plaza, which would require Washington Street to become a bus-only road (see motifri.com/futurepvd). Since their announcement, a group of downtown property owners, Concerned Citizens of Capital Center, LLC, Exchange Street Hotel, LLC, 100 Westminster Partners, LLC, and 30 Kennedy Plaza, LLC, reacted with a lawsuit against the City of Providence, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation and the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, filed on January 7.
They claim that the proposed project “will result in a significant detrimental impact to the properties abutting the project.” They also expressed concern that they were not given the opportunity to meaningfully express any worries they have about the project, and expressed worries about the environmental impact of the project.
The lawsuit states, “The Kennedy Plaza Project and specifically the re-routing of the bus routes, alteration of bus stops and alteration of traffic patterns on Fulton Street and Washington Street stands to cause property damage, property devaluation, inconvenience, annoyance and an interference with the Plaintiffs’ quiet enjoyment of their Properties.”
