City to Help the Neediest: Sox Fans with Tickets and Cars

Call Bostonist crazy, but WTF?! The Boston City Council has taken up the cause of making parking lot operators refund money to Sox fans who park and then leave because of rain delays. Naturally, we can see the political capital in this move, what with the way that lot operators jack up prices when demand is high (stupid capitalism!), but will someone at City Hall start getting serious about encouraging fans to take the T to the ballgame?

Bostonist just can't get over this. We love baseball and we love going to Fenway, but what makes Sox fans so special? If Bostonist parks in a garage downtown to see a play, but the show is cancelled because several actors have caught the flu, can we get our money back from the garage operator? What about the babysitter who's home with Toddler Bostonist? More to the point, if we take the T to Fenway and the game is rained out, can we get back our $1.25? This campaign to indemnify the poor, driving, ticket-holding masses seems designed to encourage fans to drive to the park.

This whole thing got started, according to the Globe, after a fan from West Roxbury, Lee Vaughan, complained to the City Council about having spent $40 on parking for the May 2 rain-out. Ironically (perhaps), Bostonist could only find one "L. Vaughan" in the West Roxbury white pages (we used the paper edition, not one of the on-line look-up services), and that person lives about 12 blocks from the West Roxbury commuter rail station. Even if 12 blocks is too far to walk (she was, after all, with her five-year-old son), the station also has 62 parking spaces and there seems to be no shortage of on-street parking nearby. So for a $6.50 round trip on the commuter rail, $2.50 for two tokens, and $2.00 to park at the MBTA lot in West Roxbury, Ms. Vaughan could have saved $29.00 on transportation to the May 2 game, without even figuring in the cost of gas.