269 Signatures Against a Two-Way Centredale Bypass — and No Answer on What Upkeep Will Cost

The North Providence Town Council voted Tuesday to authorize an agreement with the state transportation department for the Centerdale Streetscape / Bypass project, hours after residents delivered a 269-signature petition opposing a rumored conversion of the bypass to two-way traffic.

The town's grants manager told the council the $1.7 million federal grant behind the project cannot pay for a traffic pattern change, according to the North Providence Town Council's published meeting recording. She said the money is now aimed at what she repeatedly called the "beautification" portion of the work — new lighting and streetscape improvements — and that the idea of altering the bypass has been dropped for now.

The council approved the agreement by voice vote. One council member recused himself from the item.

What the petition said

The petition was presented under an agenda item on the Centerdale Streetscape / Bypass. A resident read it aloud on behalf of the organizer, who was present but asked her to read it.

Dated May 23, 2026, the petition asserted that the mayor was negotiating with the state to convert the one-way bypass in front of town hall into a two-way street, and that the plan would eliminate parking on one side to make room for a center travel lane. It said a federal grant of $1.7 million was approved in 2024 and that the town would owe a 20% local match of roughly $425,000. A local match is the share of a grant-funded project a municipality must pay itself.

The petition also claimed there were "secret ulterior motives behind the project that have not been disclosed," and argued the work "would benefit only a few businesses in Centerdale while putting the financial burden on us municipal and federal taxpayers." Those are the petitioner's characterizations; the recording contains no evidence presented to support the claim of undisclosed motives.

The council president said most of the council does not want a two-way street there, and said the concept had appeared in a news article but that no work with the state on a conversion was underway. The council accepted the petition by voice vote.

A second resident used the moment to make a broader point, telling the council that in a single meeting it had discussed millions of dollars in projects and that residents should pay closer attention. "If you can't keep up with your current bills, don't make more bills worth millions and millions of dollars," she said.

The grants manager's clarification

When the streetscape item came up later, the grants manager opened by addressing the traffic question directly. She said the $1.7 million grant "would never ever cover the cost of removing the bypass and creating a two-way traffic pattern."

What had actually been discussed, she said, was using some of the funding for a feasibility study of ways to make the bypass area safer. She traced that to a 2025 revision of the town's safety action plan, which she said flagged the bypass as a "high injury network" and recommended looking at pedestrian safety improvements, though it did not specifically call for changing the traffic pattern. She said the document is public and posted on the state transportation planning agency's website under its Safe Streets for All program.

"Based on the reaction that we got when it was kind of mentioned just in passing," she said, she went back to the funder and said the town would stick to the streetscape work only.

She also told the council the $425,000 match is now covered. She said the town received a $392,000 state commerce grant that will pay for lighting in Centredale and will count as part of the match, and that earlier engineering studies the town paid for years ago cover the rest. She said she could not disclose that at the council's May meeting because the decision had not been made.

The lighting piece is the largest concrete item described. She said 101 lights in the area need to be replaced, with cost estimates supplied by the town's communications team. Working lights removed from Centredale, she said, would be reinstalled in another village area under a separate state commerce grant secured before she took the job, with tree grants planned there as well.

Pushback on numbers that were not in front of the council

The approval did not come without friction. A council member pressed for detail on what, exactly, the town would be buying.

"Before we go out and ask for money, we got to know what we're spending it on," he said, adding that the lighting "doesn't need to be Paris." The grants manager responded that she does not select the products — "I get told the numbers and I get told what we want" — and said she would try to obtain a catalog or product information and bring it back.

Another council member asked whether the design the council saw at its previous meeting was drawn to the $1.7 million figure. The grants manager said the design in her binder dates to roughly 2021, that she does not know whether it was prepared with that grant amount in mind, and that she still has to write the full application specifying how the money will be used. The council member's concern was straightforward: if the design bids at $1.2 million or at $2.5 million, the town needs to know before the work is locked in.

The sharpest exchange concerned maintenance. A speaker asked what would happen to the existing clock, whether planters would be replaced with topiaries, and then whether anyone knew the annual maintenance cost of the finished streetscape. The grants manager said that is not part of her role.

"I'm just shocked that there's not somebody here to talk about the maintenance costs," the speaker said. "Does anybody have the maintenance costs or know who would have the maintenance costs?"

The response from the dais was that the town cannot know maintenance costs before it knows what it is installing. The speaker countered that each design pitch should carry a maintenance figure, because a decision would not normally be made without one. Asked whether the public would see maintenance costs before a final decision, officials said the costs would be discussed at a later meeting, before the design is chosen, and noted that every meeting on the project has been public. The recording does not indicate that any maintenance figure exists in writing yet.

The exchange did not change the vote. The council authorized the agreement with the state transportation department by voice vote, allowing the town to move toward obligating the federal money — the step in which a general grant award is converted into a specific, funded scope of work.

What happens next

The design still has to be finalized and the full grant application written before construction money is committed. The grants manager said she would share the project binder, including the 2021 designs, with council members, and that she would seek the lighting product information a council member requested.

She also invited the council to schedule Finance Committee meetings to go through her grant portfolio in detail, telling members her office is across the hall from theirs. Residents who want the maintenance-cost question answered before the design is set will need to watch for that committee's agenda; council members said the figures would come back to a public meeting before a final selection.