In 2010, RIPTA and the City of Providence jointly completed the Transportation Corridors to Livable Communities project, which seeks to increase the effectiveness of public transit along the City’s five busiest transit routes in creating community hubs and achieving the City’s livability and sustainability goals. A major infrastructure investment of the project is the creation of RIPTA’s first Rapid Bus service along Broad and North Main Streets—the R-Line­. The R-Line is RIPTA’s premier transit service, creating a rail-like experience for passengers. The project also focused on ways to make less heavily used routes more transit friendly and prepare them to become Rapid Bus routes in the future.

KMDG crafted design guidelines as a key component in the transit corridor project. They detail stop-by-stop recommendations for amenities such as transit shelters, public art, seating, trash cans, and bike racks based on stop location, sight lines, pedestrian movements, traffic patterns and ridership counts. They provide RIPTA and the City with a step-by-step guide to implement transit amenities and pedestrian improvements so that public transit serves as a placemaking tool. KMDG also developed a call for artists, helped facilitate the selection of artists and managed the final detailing of artist works to fit into the shelter designs.