July 4th festivities spoiled by 'disaster' at parking garage
Last weekend's Fourth of July celebration on the Esplanade was spoiled by what tipster Benjamin Taylor of Hollis, N.H., calls a "total disaster" at the MBTA parking garage near Fresh Pond in Cambridge. "I wanted to make you aware of the events at the Alewife station parking garage on July 4th (and extending into the 5th), which can only be called a total disaster. It took over 1 hour and 15 minutes for us to leave the parking garage once we got to our car, and there were many others behind us that must have had to wait much longer," Taylor writes in an e-mail he sent to GlobeWatch and T officials.
"This was the first year we have attended the Boston fireworks, and we heeded the dire traffic warnings and decided to use public transportation. I traveled with three companions to the Alewife garage at about 8 p.m., and found a special pay-as-you-enter system was in effect - a little slow, backing up traffic into the street, but I thought it indicated the MBTA had anticipated the greater demands of the holiday."
With vehicles snaking all the way to the fifth-floor roof area, Taylor says, he managed to snag a spot on the fourth floor and then headed with his party to Kendall Square on the Red Line.
After the fireworks, Taylor and his group returned to Alewife station and, while the train was crowded, they got there at about midnight, without much delay, he says.
"When we got there, we found no traffic moving to leave the [fourth] floor of the garage. We decided to wait before moving our car, and walked to the edge to get fresh air and watch the world outside. Many others shut off their cars and did the same. We were directly over one of the exits, and saw one of the reasons for the hold-up on emptying the garage - cars leaving the building were getting backed up in the access road north of the station. There was a lone female police office futilely trying to get the cars to line up in two lanes, but her effort of standing in the road and shouting at the cars only seemed to slow traffic as drivers tried to figure out why she was in the road."
After an hour of waiting, Taylor said, a Transit police officer arrived and told waiting drivers to head down an entrance ramp, despite signs that said "wrong way" and "tire damage" due to spikes. Once drivers got out of their cars and manually unlocked a ramp gate, traffic seemed to start moving, says Taylor.
But a second barrier, a metal chain, had to be unlocked by police before Taylor and the cars behind him finally got out of the garage, a full 2 1/2 hours after the fireworks ended, says Taylor. "I understand that the Fourth of July is a unique event (with maybe New Year's coming in as a close second) and only happens once a year. Most everyone who has parked at an MBTA station will be leaving shortly after the fireworks end, and therefore at Alewife the entire parking garage will need to empty at about the same time. But there has to be a better way of handling the exodus."
The MBTA responds
"We certainly didn't want customers to wait two hours to get out of the garage," said Lydia Rivera, a T spokeswoman who reviewed Taylor's complaint and apologized for his troubles. "It was July 4, it was very congested," she said. The MBTA institutes a pay-before-parking plan for busy events precisely to avoid long lines exiting the garage. "What didn't help was rowdy customers," Rivera said. On top of very crowded conditions, Transit and Cambridge police had been busy that night dealing with unruly revelers lighting firecrackers inside the garage. Also, she maintains that drivers, not police, took it upon themselves to use the entrance ramp to exit, a dangerous move given the hairpin turns there and the locked gates. She adds that the Alewife garage does not use tire spikes.
WHO'S IN CHARGE
Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
10 Park Plaza, Suite 3910
Boston, MA 02116
617-222-5215
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