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PinkSwallowLove OP t1_j5awgm8 wrote

I should clarify, Westerly seems to be distant from the more populous urban areas in Rhode Island and socioeconomically and culturally more integrated with the southeastern CT communities.

I should also have made it clear that I am writing from a public transportation perspective since I don’t drive, and my observation has been that southern Rhode Island seems poorly connected with itself.

There are frequent buses that take you from Newport to Providence every day of the week, for example, and the bus system coverage (while definitely nowhere near perfect at all and has a long way to improve) is decent enough throughout and within the Providence metro area (Pawtucket to Prov, or Warwick to Prov, etc). Going in the north-south direction from Newport to Providence is not that bad. Going in the east west direction from Newport to Westerly is far worse because there just isn’t enough public transit options to take you directly there. You’d have to go through Providence (via bus or a mix of bus and train) to get from Newport to Westerly for the fastest route. There just doesn’t seem to be an integrated bus line that takes you directly through Newport-Jamestown-SK-Charlestown-Westerly. I guess what I am trying to say is commuting within the populous eastern RI corridor (even from its southern extremity in Newport to the northern reaches of Providence) is much easier than commuting from eastern RI to Western/southwestern RI via public transportation.

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moreobviousthings t1_j5bio4o wrote

While I live in Westerly, I do spend far more time in Pawcatuck, Stonington and Mystic than I do in RI outside of Westerly. So I agree with your observation that Westerly is more connected to CT than to RI. CT operates a bus under SEAT that serves the area up to Pawcatuck, but I know nothing more about it.

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Peach_enby t1_j5b4pkr wrote

Yea, public transport in rural areas sucks, welcome to America? Also welcome to towns on a state border lol?

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SeanRobertsFerngully t1_j5bqa0h wrote

There's not much reason to public transport to Charlestown, richmond, Hopkinson etc if you don't live there or are visiting someone. I'll golf down there from time to time but have never found myself heading there to try out a restaurant or bar or what not. I used to work in westerly per diem but don't often go down there. I honestly go to mystic more as there's more to do and it's faster than getting off exit one and getting stuck behind someone going slightly below the speed limit on RT 3

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