rsc

What with all the predictions of dire traffic resulting from the Big Dig follies, the Red Sox have been making some gestures toward encouraging fans to use public transportation to get to games, even going so far as to mention during the TV broadcasts the existence of the free shuttle bus between Ruggles station and Fenway Park before and after games. (We've known of the existence of this shuttle since they instituted it about 6 years ago, but in recent years they have rarely if ever mentioned it.) Our preferred method of going to Fenway from Gloucester is to drive to the Wellington Orange Line station, park there (for $3.50, as opposed to $25 for the Landmark Center on Park Drive), and then take the Orange Line to Ruggles and the shuttle bus.

Unfortunately, the MBTA yesterday seemed to be doing everything in its power to discourage such civic-minded behavior. For one thing -- and we did know about this -- they're doing track/signal work on the northern stretches of the Orange Line after 8:30 PM, and using shuttle buses form Haymarket, thereby replacing the last 10 minutes of a ride seated in a not-too-crowded subway car with 25 minutes probably standing in an overcrowded bus travelling over some remarkably bad pavement.

But long before that, we noticed as we were walking across the Wellington parking lot that we were just missing a southbound train; oh well, there'll be another one along in a few minutes. The next one actually arrived about 20 minutes later, during which interval five northbound trains arrived and left. As it turned out, we only missed the first couple of batters of the game, but we really had left ourselves plenty of time.

Oh, and when we got to Ruggles the escalators weren't running. (They were running when we got there after the game.)

Somebody whould tell teh MBTA that it's not just the Green Line that serves Fenway Park.