side from planning 2,700 new parking spaces in two garages, Boston Red Sox officials are offering only sketchy plans for how they will get 10,000 more fans in and out of the notoriously gridlocked Fenway area when they build a new Fenway Park.
Ball club officials said yesterday that they are budgeting $50 million for transit and utility improvements in the area, including new streets and improved intersections, and another $80 million for two new garages on Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue.
However, the parking garages - 2,160 spaces on Brookline Avenue and 600 on Boylston Street - would be built, in part, on current open-air lots for a net gain of only 300 additional spaces.
While Red Sox chief executive officer John Harrington said the club hopes to increase the percentage of people using the MBTA to get to games from 30 percent to 40 percent, he and club officials had few specific proposals.
Sox officials said they hope the state will pay for upgrading the Kenmore Green Line stop and an existing commuter rail station near Brookline Avenue that serves special trains for Sox home games.
''We have an initial idea of what can be done,'' Harrington said. But to a great extent, the club seems to be counting on what he called ''good communication and advertising'' to encourage people to leave their cars at suburban T station lots and take a train to the new park.
Harrington added that the team hopes the proposed $350 million ballpark can be a ''catalyst for public transportation improvements'' that as yet remain undefined. What share of the costs the Sox would cover remains unclear as well.
Fenway Park has for years been a major headache for fans to visit by car, because drivers must pass through several traffic signals - or chaotic Kenmore Square - to get there from Storrow Drive or the Massachusetts Turnpike.
In 1988, MBTA officials built a new commuter rail stop called Yawkey Station on the Framingham branch that now serves several hundred Fenway-bound riders a night for home games. Trains from other south-suburban lines have since been added.
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said last night that he was not concerned that transportation plans are vague, and he is confident mass-transit and automobile improvements can be worked out.
''That's part of the planning process,'' Menino said in a telephone interview. ''There are solutions, and I am very optimistic that we can make this happen over the next several months. The transportation piece will take some work to be done. But I have a lot of confidence ... nothing can be worse than what is out there now.''
Menino said he has not spoken with Red Sox officials about how much, if any, city or public money should be spent on transportation, but seemed open to bargaining. ''I hope people don't become naysayers, because this is a very significant development for the city of Boston,'' Menino said.
