Shooting to make the Celtics game, and deadline — if traffic cooperates

Then it hit me — an e-mail heads-up that Brian Scalabrine, the fan-favorite Celtic whose popularity is inversely proportional to his playing time, would be taking the commuter rail to the game. Perfect, I thought. Everyone loves Scal. I will ride along, collect material for the column and get to the game on time, all in one shot. How could it fail?

Well, for starters, the 6-foot-9 Scalabrine planned to fold himself onto a bench seat on an inbound Fitchburg Line train leaving Waltham’s Brandeis/Roberts station at 4:08 p.m. I was in the newsroom, near the JFK/UMass stop on the Red Line, south of downtown. I had two choices: take the T on an elaborate, hour-plus, multi-modal reverse commute, or drive 16 highway miles to Waltham and park my car at the station.

I preferred the former, but that plan crumbled when my editor asked me to make some quick adjustments to another story and, because of a computer snag, I lost access to the system that lets me log in using my laptop.

After getting both squared away, it was 3:26. I grabbed my keys and raced to my car, deluding myself that 42 minutes was plenty of time. My bigger concerns then were whether the station lot would be full and whether it would take credit cards or require me to stuff singles that I did not have into a tiny slot, an exercise that the new MBTA general manager, Richard A. Davey, has dubbed an unacceptable “carnival game.’’

I hit the Mass. Pike, 13 miles and 35 minutes to go. Fine, I thought, cruising westbound through the Allston tolls ahead of rush hour — but then traffic ground to a halt. Inching toward Newton Corner and starting to sweat, I clawed my way to the offramp in an effort to beat the train to the station on surface roads instead. I inched through Watertown Square before traffic opened up on Main Street, 5 miles and 18 minutes to go. I exhaled. And then: more congestion. Bikes breezed past. The photographer called to ask where I was.

At 4:05 I got to the Moody Street light in Waltham Center, 2 miles and 3 minutes to go.

I could see on my GPS that I was a couple of blocks north of the next station on the route, but I wasn’t familiar with the terrain. By the time I had considered whether I could board there and make my way through to find Scal’s car — his bright red hair high above the seats like a beacon — the light had changed and I was rolling forward again, continuing on course.

I reached the edge of the Brandeis campus at 4:09 and came over the hill on South Street, when traffic slowed again. I could hear the reason before I could see it: the gate lowering at the grade crossing a few hundred yards ahead, and the train pulling into, and then out of, the station. The train was two minutes late, but not late enough.

I pulled a U-turn and tried to zip back to Waltham Center. The train made a straight line. I navigated a zigzag pattern on local roads. The clock raced; 4:13, 4:14. I heard a ping — on my dashboard, the empty light went on. I waited at a red light. The train, again, pulled away.

I picked up my phone — thinking about my parents, US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and all of the other people who have rightly cautioned against talking while driving — and called T spokesman Joe Pesaturo to see where I might catch Scal’s train down the line.

He helpfully told me that it would make a flag stop in Belmont in four minutes — meaning it would stop if someone was on the platform — and a scheduled stop at Porter Square six minutes after that before arriving at North Station on or around 4:33.

I took off, quixotically driving east, not quite sure of the best way to go, imagining that I might race into town and catch up with Scal to jot down a note or two and shoot a little video for Boston.com as he disembarked, glad-handing surprised commuters.

I swooped down Charles River Road, picked up Soldiers Field Road, and found myself on Storrow Drive in good time. I was approaching the Esplanade — a mile, and an eternity, away from North Station as rush hour descended on Boston — when I learned that Scal had left the station, heading for the locker room at the adjoining Garden. I crawled past MGH, nearly got hit by a lane-changing Subaru, and waited to turn by Science Park and the old West End. At 4:53, I squeezed onto Red Auerbach Way and pulled up by the Garden.

Eighty-seven minutes, 29 miles, no Scal. And I still had to figure out where to park.

The construction bids have come back for the first phase of the Longfellow Bridge rehabilitation project, and the six submissions ranged from about $18 million to $23 million — less than half the $53 million predicted by Department of Transportation staff working on the project. The winning bid was $17.8 million, from SPS New England Inc.

That raised eyebrows among members of the board of directors formed to oversee the DOT, given that the difference was considerably more than the 10 percent or 20 percent savings that might be ascribed to contractors eager to get work in a sluggish economy.

“It suggests to me that somewhere in your database there’s a significant assumption that needs to be challenged. . . . Clearly we missed the ball on this one,’’ said John R. Jenkins, a Natick resident who owns an insurance agency and chairs the DOT board.

“If there was a $17 and a $26 and a $42 and a $58 [million bid], then you’d say, ‘OK, that makes a lot of sense.’ But these are all between $18 and $23. So there’s not a wide range. Even if you took the highest one, we missed it by more than 100 percent,’’ he said.

Fellow board member Andrew Whittle, an MIT professor and Boxborough resident, agreed.

He said the bids raise concerns either about the department’s estimates or about the potential for “gaming of change orders,’’ when bids are submitted artificially low to win a contract — followed by regular amendments during the life of a project to raise the cost.

Commuters who don’t want to wait on the platform, especially in inclement weather, can linger in their cars and tune in to 1630 AM to hear real-time updates on the arrival time of their trains.

The T and MBCR hope to extend the low-wattage radio program soon to all commuter rail parking lots with 50 or more spaces.

The service is now available at: Abington, Anderson/Woburn, Andover, Ashland, Attleboro, Ballardville/Haverhill, Bradford/Haverhill, Bridgewater, Brockton, Campello/Brockton, Canton Central, Cohasset, Dedham, East Weymouth, Framingham, Gloucester, Grafton, Halifax, Hamilton/Wenham, Hanson, Hersey/Needham, Holbrook/Randolph, Mansfield, Middleboro/Lakeville, Montello/Brockton, Nantasket Junction, Needham Junction, North Billerica, North Leominster, North Scituate, Norwood Central, Norwood Depot, Rowley, Salem, South Acton, South Weymouth, Southborough, Stoughton, Swampscott, Walpole, Wellesley Square, Westborough, West Concord, West Hingham, West Natick, Weymouth Landing, Whitman, and Wilmington.

Also on the commuter rail front, riders of the Haverhill line to North Station should benefit from a $17.4 million reliability and safety project being funded with federal stimulus dollars.

State, local, and federal officials gathered in Andover on Monday to hold a groundbreaking for the project, which will add improvements to train-control systems that have affected on-time performance and bring construction of a double-track along the route. That second track will allow for functioning trains to maneuver around disabled trains or work sites along the route.

The work complements a similar $50 million project on the Fitchburg line.

Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.