Menino: Fenway plan favors Sox, shortchanges city

A $55 million state Senate plan to improve the neighborhood around Fenway Park is too accommodating to the Red Sox and shortchanges more critical city transportation needs, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday.

In the first sign of a split on the fast-moving effort to provide state financing for improvements in the Fenway and Longwood Medical Area neighborhoods, Menino said he wasn't happy with a proposal expected to be released today by the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The Fenway improvements are part of the so-called Commonwealth Investment Act, which will be debated by the full Senate on Thursday and is expected to pass overwhelmingly.

''The city's not happy with the overall plan," Menino said after a hotel groundbreaking on the South Boston Waterfront. ''The numbers don't match up with the city's plan."

Menino's ire was aimed not only at legislators but also at Red Sox management, which has pushed for public improvements as part of an overall plan to improve and redevelop Fenway Park. ''We've been so good to them," Menino said.

A Boston Redevelopment Authority spokesman later elaborated on Menino's criticism, saying the Senate's plan is too oriented toward giving the team what it wants and not enough toward assisting the broader neighborhood with its immediate congestion problems.

A Red Sox spokesman, Doug Bailey, said the team does not consider the package ''Red Sox-centric."

''We've worked with the neighborhood all along with this project," he said, and found residents, businesses, and institutions to be supportive. ''We will need to sit down with the mayor and discuss exactly what his problems with the package are."

Massachusetts Senate leaders said a week and a half ago that they intended to approve $55 million for improvements in the Fenway Park and Longwood Medical Area, a significant increase over the $12.5 million the House proposed.

In March, the three major owners of the team presented their list of desired road and rail improvements to Menino, the Legislature's leaders, and Governor Mitt Romney, but they did not publicly ask for city or state money. Red Sox president Larry Lucchino attended a meeting about 12 days ago with Senate President Robert E. Travaglini and other senators.

The Senate's plan appears consistent with a new plan jointly developed by the Red Sox and developer John Rosenthal, who has proposed a large mixed-use development for an area near Kenmore Square and Fenway Park. (The New York Times Co., parent company of The Boston Globe, owns 17 percent of the Red Sox.)

The money is about half the amount the Legislature had pledged five years ago, when previous Red Sox owners were contemplating building a new ball park in the area. It would be earmarked largely for converting the Yawkey Way commuter rail station from a part-time to full-time stop, improving four nearby MBTA subway stops, and upgrading the traffic rotary near Landmark Center.

Romney generally supports improvements but has not said whether he likes this particular package.

BRA spokeswoman Meredith Baumann said the money should be targeted to benefit residents and employees of the Fenway and Longwood communities in general -- not so focused on improving the area right around the park.

''The legislation needs to address the entire community," she said. ''Infrastructure improvements should be made that will have impacts both in the short term and the long term."

City planners want short-term improvements along Brookline Avenue, Boylston Street, Audubon Circle, and the Landmark Center rotary, which ''are among the most congested in the city," she said. Signal improvements and establishing one-way traffic will immediately alleviate traffic problems, the city said.

Ann Dufresne, Travaglini's spokeswoman, defended the Senate's spending plan, saying, ''This has always been about helping the hospitals, the universities, the businesses, and the community move people in and out of that area more efficiently. The hospitals in that area tell us it is gridlocked, and it's even difficult to get ambulances through, let alone patients, visitors, and their families."

Menino is not the only one criticizing the Senate's Fenway spending plans.

The Conservation Law Foundation, a powerful advocacy group, said it will take the state to court if money is sunk into the Fenway betterments before other, previously promised projects that helped pave the way for the Big Dig.

Almost two weeks ago, Travaglini suggested the plan was not just for the Red Sox but for the entire Fenway-Longwood area. But Travaglini raised hackles at City Hall by suggesting that the city would have to make a financial contribution too.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com; Raphael Lewis at rlewis@globe.com.