PROVIDENCE — Between 16,000 and 17,000 senior citizens and low-income residents in Rhode Island may soon need to pay more for the bus-pass cards they use for reduced fares on Rhode Island Public Transit Authority buses.

The state transit authority expects to consider fare increases for the cards at its next board meeting, set for Jan. 26, according to RIPTA spokeswoman Karen D. Mensel. The cards would cost $5 per year instead of $1.

In other news, RIPTA has decided not to cut the only bus line that serves northwestern Rhode Island — Bus 9, which currently runs inbound from Burrillville to Providence six times a day, five days a week, and outbound seven times each weekday. Instead, RIPTA has cut out one mid-day run in each direction on that route, to reduce inbound runs to five and outbound runs to six, according to RIPTA planning manager Timothy McCormick.

The schedule changes will all go into effect on Jan. 17, when RIPTA begins its winter schedule on all routes, Mensel said.

Bus 9 will no longer travel to the Zambarano unit of Eleanor Slater Hospital in the far northwest corner of Burrillville, which was its farthest destination. However, RIPTA is adding what it calls a flex zone bus that will allow people in Pascoag and Slatersville –– and in between those Burrillville and North Smithfield villages –– to make reservations for bus service within the zone, McCormick said.

Such flex zones exist now in Narragansett, Woonsocket, West Warwick, the village of Kingston in South Kingstown and Westerly. One in Bristol-Portsmouth that wasn’t highly used is being eliminated, McCormick said. At public hearings this fall about proposed RIPTA cuts, many praised the flex-zone system.

“People don’t know in a community how much they’re going to love flex until it’s there,” McCormick said. “In the fall, people came out in droves and told us flex saved their lives.”

Disabled veterans needing chemotherapy treatment said the flexible bus service allowed them to remain living in their homes but get their much-needed medical treatment. Senior citizens say they can live longer in their own homes because the system allows them to reach grocery stores and doctor’s appointments in areas where regular bus services wouldn’t be so personalized.

The proposed fare increases for the senior/disabled bus-pass program would require both groups of people to pay $25 for a card that would be valid for five years, Mensel said. With those cards, senior citizens and people with disabilities ride the bus for half price. If those people also meet low-income guidelines set by the state, they ride the bus for free with those cards.

The senior citizen cards now cost $5 for five years, and the cards for people with disabilities now cost $2 for two years, according to Mensel.

A Dec. 17 public hearing on the proposed fee increases drew about 16 people, most of whom preferred no increase, but asked RIPTA to phase in the increase if it had to be done, Mensel said.

kbramson@projo.com