Easy does it on Day 1 for commuters
Commuters sailed to work and returned home almost as smoothly yesterday, while Boston shopkeepers and restaurateurs fretted that the boost to the local economy that convention planners promised may not materialize.
Hundreds of thousands of commuters steered clear of the city, or left far earlier than usual, leaving roadways half-empty and occasionally hushed on the convention's inaugural day. The traffic tangles that some residents feared never happened.
''God bless the Democrats," said proud Republican Scott Watkins, who said he made ''record time" on his drive from Haverhill to East Boston and back yesterday. ''We should have this [convention] once or twice a month."
As protesters decried the restrictions of their screened-in pen across the street from the FleetCenter, police pronounced the first day of the party gathering a security success, but warned that the event is not over.
''We expect more difficult times in the days ahead," said Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole.
Police helicopters hovered in the skies over the city. Bomb squads have been busy checking out suspicious packages -- 19 in all by yesterday afternoon. All turned out to be false alarms.
Teams of armed patrolmen, transit police, and special operations officers swarmed onto trains as they pulled into Haymarket station, asking passengers to open their bags.
But across the city, the big story was the hellish commute that wasn't. Workers swapped stories about how their ride to work was a relative breeze, despite lane closures and other constrictions.
''It was scary. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop," said Karyn Courtney, a receptionist whose usual car-to-bus-to-subway commute from North Reading to Post Office Square was about 20 minutes shorter than normal yesterday. ''This is weird. It's a ghost town."
The story on the trip back home was almost the same, as the planned 4 p.m. shutdown of miles of highway was pushed back by a few hours because of surprisingly light traffic. At 6 p.m., when the Expressway is usually clogged, Boston's traffic looked more like Boise's.
Traffic officials said yesterday that, though no official count was available, they believe they accomplished their goal of reducing the number of cars that traveled into the city by 50 percent. On a typical weekday, about 600,000 cars come into Boston.
There were plenty of empty seats on most commuter trains, subways, and buses, too, perhaps due to fears of terrorism spawned by this spring's train bombing in Spain, and from a new baggage search policy that many riders had worried would drastically slow down their trips.
Some commuter rail riders flashed thumbs-up signs to MBTA officials after a glass-smooth ride to work.
''It was awesome," said Sheila Medeiros, who commutes from New Hampshire to the Financial District. ''I have to give them credit, it was so well-organized."
One incident occurred at midafternoon when passengers on a commuter train in Southborough were told to transfer to buses after an unattended baby carriage was spotted on board. A bomb-sniffing dog found nothing amiss.
''My brother's a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard, and his advice was to walk, so I'm walking," said Chris Linsky of Brookline, who bypassed his usual 10-minute trip on the Green Line subway yesterday in favor of a 35-minute walk on the Esplanade to his Back Bay office. ''He wasn't saying it because of any specific threats, but just because it's a prime target."
Transportation officials commended the region's commuters for staying off the roads and adjusting to convention-related closures. But they cautioned against taking the wrong message from yesterday's smooth drive-time scenarios.
''The bottom line is, the commuters are doing a great job, but we need more of the same," said Mariellen Burns, a spokeswoman for the DNC transportation and security planning team. ''If people go back to the way we normally commute tomorrow, it's going to be trouble."
In dozens of interviews across the metropolitan area, and in a Boston.com survey, the overwhelming majority of commuters said the convention had actually made their trips quicker and easier. In the survey, which drew about 5,500 responses, 70 percent gave the commute an ''A" grade, and another 14 percent gave it a ''B." Only 16 percent gave it a C or worse.
With many employees either on vacation or working from home, convention delegates had the sidewalks of the North End nearly to themselves, walking past almost empty restaurants toward a luncheon hosted by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee in the shadow of Old North Church.
''Nobody's going to pay for food when you can get it for free," said Joe Taglieri, a manager at the Florentine Cafe on Hanover Street. ''For my restaurant to be empty like this on a summer day in the North End is unbelievable. Wow. It just doesn't happen."
As Taglieri spoke, he spotted a city official, who, he said, once predicted streets full and restaurants so jammed that the neighborhood would have to be cordoned off to accommodate the crowd.
''He must feel like a fool now," said Taglieri, just moments before he asked a waitress and a hostess to take the afternoon off because of slow business.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said one-third of its 1,000 workers took the day off. Some 300 workers at
Cathy Raffa, a waitress at Pagliuca's restaurant on Parmenter Street, said convention business was passing her by.
''People are very disappointed," said Raffa, sitting at a table inside the empty restaurant. ''Everyone thought the restaurants were going to do well, but we're losing business. Everyone's losing business with this."
Protesters were disappointed, too.
A federal appeals court rejected a preliminary injunction sought by activists who wanted the city to open up or move a controversial fenced ''free speech zone" near the FleetCenter. The judicial panel said it would spell out its reasons later.
As delegates began to arrive for the convention's opening night, some 200 protesters shouted to them from the zone.
Across the city, the weight of security forces was unmistakable. Boston Police manned checkpoints around the FleetCenter. A phalanx of State Police on motorcycles roared through Government Center. National Guardsmen in camouflaged uniforms roamed the North End.
''I think they're doing a very thorough job and I'm indeed happy they're doing it -- whatever it takes," said Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall, a delegate from Miami. ''I wouldn't want anything less."
Mac Daniel, Anthony Flint, Stephen Kurkjian, Sean Murphy, Shelley Murphy, and Jonathan Saltzman of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Thomas Farragher can be reached at farragher@globe.com.
