AndyandSue

We have a caravan of two cars that will be traveling back from Canada to NJ and will spend a couple of days in the Boston area. This would be a Saturday and Sunday in August. Our plan is to find reasonably priced accommodations (ideally under $150 per night per room) within walking distance or a short car ride from an MBTA T station, so that we can visit this wonderfully walkable city without driving into that lobster trap. From the "T" map, the best options for stations that have parking are (counterclockwise starting from the north): Wonderland, Oak Grove, Lechmere, Alewife, Riverside (or 3 or 4 other nearby stations on the green line), Forest Hills, Mattapan, or Braintree. We would be either walking to a T station, or parking there, on a Saturday and perhaps a Sunday. Any thoughts on good or OK neighborhoods with lodging nearby, and T stations that tend to have available parking on weekends for those without permits?

Thanks.

yk

I don't think there's parking at Lechmere.

I'm very familiar with Riverside station. There is a Hotel Indigo right next door (5-min walk) which offers free parking actually. I'm pretty sure you can get rooms there for less than $150/night.

The major downside is the long ride on the Green Line D into the city. It takes about 30 minutes to Kenmore, about 40 minutes to Park Street station.

As for Alewife, you can park there on weekends without any problems. Not sure which hotels are near Alewife though. It is a shorter ride on the T from Alewife into Park Street (compared to Riverside).

Having said all the above, driving in the city isn't too bad on weekends, and parking rates in the city are much lower on weekends as well. You can easily find parking garages for $10/day on weekends. As for hotels in the city, I'm pretty sure you can get decent 4* hotels through Priceline or Hotwire if you're comfortable with those websites.

Ackislander

Everything that yk said is true about staying in the city on a weekend, though parking _at the hotel itself_ will be expensive. If you park at the Common or Post Office Square and are out by 8 on Monday, you will be fine.

You will be _much_ happier in the city. Any of the hotels you would get in Back Bay or the Financial District/Quincy Market would be better than the hotel at Riverside.

One caveat: the closer you get to September 1, the more you have to contend with parents bringing their children back to university and competing for hotel rooms.

gail

Wonderland is near the airport and not in an area you would enjoy staying.

Oak Grove is in a residential area on Malden/Melrose line - there are no hotels within miles.

Forest Hills and Mattapan are not hotel areas either.

Lechmere has no parking - although I do not know if you could find street parking on the weekend. There might be some hotels up route 28 in Somerville that have bus service to Lechmere.

Alewife has plenty of parking - there are a couple of seedy hotels within a mile.

That leaves Riverside - which has been discussed above and Braintree - which has been discussed on other threads and I do not have as much info on.

What you are asking has been requested many times on this board, and there is no great solution. I suggest you explore all travel tricks to try to stay in the city or consider driving in - by the time you pay for MBTA parking for 2 cars and MBTA fares for 2 cars full of people, it will be cheaper to drive and park on weekends. If you are driving from Canada to NJ I will assume drivers are reasonably competent and there is absolutely no reason you can not drive into Boston.

socialworker

Hi--what about this Travelzoo special? It is a good hotel. You could check for availability. Very good points above about the cost of T parking and fares.

http://hotels.travelzoo.com/lodging-...um=email_top20

yk

The Colonnade hotel deal (via Travelzoo posted by socialworker above) is pretty good. Of course, unless the OP is visiting the black-out weekend in August. While it is a bit over the OP's budget (don't forget to add about 13% tax), the deal includes free breakfast @ Brasserie Jo.

One potential problem though: I don't know which Back Bay garage offers cheap weekend parking. I know there are plenty garages in the Financial District that do, but not in Back Bay area. Does anyone know of any?

gail

Checked out above hotel - if you could get this hotel at this price STAY THERE - even if you pay $30 or so to park, that would cover your MBTA costs approx. Your stay will be improved immeasurably if you stay in a downtown location.

Anonymous

Don't rule out Braintree yet; they have a huge parking garage that fills up early on weekdays (since it's the southern end of the line) but is fine on weekends. On Wood Road, just off Route 95 Exit 6, is a collection of chain hotels that would be just fine -- Holiday Inn, Candlewood Suites, Hampton Suites, all with plenty of free parking. There's also a Sheraton nearby, and a huge shopping mall. These might actually be closer to one of the Quincy T stations that also have garages, you could check with the hotel.

Do NOT be tempted by the Motel 6 that's next to the Braintree T station, all sorts of awful things happen there.

As noted above, there are no hotels near Mattapan or Forest Hills, and commuting on the Green Line can be a pain in the neck since much of it is along surface roads rather than actual subway lines. The disadvantage of Braintree is that you'd have to backtrack a few miles up Route 95 to get to your route homebound (Route 95 or 90, I assume).

Depending on your vehicles' capacity and how many are in your party, it might be more cost-effective to drive into town if you can find $10 parking since the T will cost $2 per person each way and about $5 for the garage parking.

cw

I agree with your staying right in Boston if that works for you. The Midtown Hotel has parking for a reduced fee and is a good basic, no-frills place to stay in a good location (not far from the Colonnade and the Prudential Center.

Another option is the Marriott in Quincy which is right off the highway and about a mile from the Quincy Adams T stop. But I agree, you can get inexpensive parking in Boston on weekends that will be cheaper than taking the train or subway. See www.boston.bestparking. com for prices and locations.

joesorce

La Quinta Inn in Somerville has been $80 on weekends and has a quick free shuttle to the T station. 2nd choice would be Holiday Inn Express in Waltham which is renovated and about $70 on wkds with Riverside line close by.

bachslunch

Note that the Mattapan T-stop is in a bad area of town, and the area around the Forest Hills T-stop is dicey. Luckily, there aren't motels anywhere near them anyway.

And the subway takes a good while to get into downtown Boston from Braintree, easily half an hour or so -- it's about comparable to getting from Riverside to downtown.

AndyandSue

Thank you so much! This is great information, just what we were looking for. It's just as helpful to know the areas to avoid. We will check out some Boston hotels as well. Our earlier experience two summers ago was that good rates were very hard to find, but maybe we'll fare better this time. Good points about the cost comparison. If we can park the car in Boston and leave it there, it's fine. For a visitor, though, Boston is a difficult city to navigate by car. I've found Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco to be much easier, because there is a sort of grid pattern. But Boston is a terrific walking city, and the T system makes it easy to get from one area to another.

Anyway, thanks again. I appreciate the help.

Andy

cw

Andy,

Good luck with your search. Let us know how it works out.

I should have added to my post that some of the end of the line T stations, particularly Mattapan and Forest Hills, don't make sense as places to park and take the T because they are not convenient to Rt. 128 (95) where you would be staying. You would already have to face city traffic to get there

I would not characterize Forest Hills as a "dicey" area. I live less than a mile away, and have friends who live closer. They take the T daily as do their teenage children. I didn't want to let the statement above go unanswered forever in the Fodors archives. The city isn't perfect but hundreds of people live and use these train/subway lines every day. Forest Hills is in Jamaica Plain, one of the most diverse and green neighborhoods in Boston.

bachslunch

I know Boston very well, and I stand by my observation about the Forest Hills subway stop being "dicey," even though as cw said there are areas of Jamaica Plain within a mile or less of the stop that are perfectly fine, even very upscale in the area north-northwest by Jamaica Pond. The immediately surrounding area of this stop is one I'd consider pretty run down, and it gets worse in a hurry if you head in most directions east of Washington Street (which is part of Roxbury and one of the not-very-good parts of Jamaica Plain) or down towards Hyde Park. It's certainly better than the Roxbury Crossing or Jackson Square stops on that line, but that's not saying much.

During the day, you should be OK depending on where you wander off from there (like west to the Arnold Arboretum, for example). But given that people (like myself) have been known to come back to hotels both after dark and after a long day of sightseeing, were there actually a hotel there I'd at the very least keep my wits about me in the area after dark and be very sure of where I'm going -- something you can't expect tourists to be savvy about.

bachslunch

And as long as we're discussing this, I would indeed consider Mattapan, including its T-Stop, a no-go for any tourist for safety reasons. Mattapan's a part of Boston I for one certainly won't walk around in, even during the day.

Sara

Why not park your car in the Alewife Station Parking Garage, leave it there for the duration of your stay, and stay at a hotel in Boston or Cambridge near a T stop that's within walking distance of things you want to do? You can park overnight for $8 per car, and you can leave a car parked there for up to seven days. Parking shouldn't be a problem on a Saturday.

cw

Bachslunch,

I guess we'll agree to disagree. I find that those who live outside of the city have different perceptions from those who live comfortably near Forest Hills, Forest Hills Cemetery, the Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park, and who go out to dinner at the Dogwood Cafe or to Doyle's.

You could be accurately describing those areas 20 or more years ago. Things have changed a lot. There are places to avoid in any city but in Boston, this is not one of them. And the mayor of Boston lives in Hyde Park, and yes, I know it's at a distance from Forest Hills.

I was fortunate that I moved to the area when I did. I couldn't afford it now.

We do agree on where tourists should park--though maybe for different reasons.

Sorry to hijack the thread--I like Sara's suggestion of parking at Alewife. I didn't know you could park there overnight.

bachslunch

cw, my experience of the Forest Hills T-stop area is in fact recent as well as older, and the observation "outside of the city" does not accurately describe where I live. While the whole area was less safe 20 years ago, that doesn't mean it's great now. And I was very specific about which area gives me concern, specifically east of Washington Street. Arnold Arboretum is west of the stop, though I wouldn't wander there (or in any other urban park) after dark.

Please note well that there is a difference between "dicey" and "dangerous." You can get into problems in both types of areas, but "dicey" can be OK at certain times of the day and not at others -- plus a real problem if you're not familiar with the area, which is the case with most tourists.

I would definitely not wander east beyond Doyle's or the Dogwood Cafe from the T-stop, myself, if I were a tourist. The Dogwood is fortunately right next to the T-stop. Doyle's is in fact a few blocks away on foot from the T-stop, and even as a local I would walk there with awareness during the day and definite caution after dark. I also would not venture into Franklin Park or wander Forest Hills Cemetery under any circumstances -- the former is in in Roxbury, which is almost uniformly bad, and I think no place for a tourist.

And some parts of Hyde Park are better than others. The section between the Forest Hills T-stop and the center of Hyde Park isn't one of them. No idea where Mayor Menino lives.

cw, were I to walk in Franklin Park, I would have no concern about the decent, law-abiding folks who live surrounding it. Unfortunately, there's a reasonable chance you may run into folks there who do not uniformly fit that description.

Most importantly, "for a tourist" is key here. My guess is that most tourists are not street savvy in new cities.

Anonymous

LOL at bachs perceptions, since my older daughters used the Forest Hills station all the time in the late 80s, getting to and from school, and then I moved to a house that was a 5-minute walk from the Mattapan station, which my younger two kids used to get to school and work until just 2 years ago. It's all about perceptions, I guess. It's all a moot point for tourists, anyway.

bachslunch

Anonymous, what don't you understand about "dicey" vs. "dangerous," as I've explained now -- twice? Your daughters presumably lived near the Forest Hills stop if they walked to and from it, and one would assume knew the area pretty well, which would suggest they knew when and where to go and not go. Did you or your daughters, for example, wander the area at, say, 2 AM? Or for another example, stroll Blue Hill Avenue in the evening, which runs along Franklin Park on the other side from the T-stop?

And are you suggesting that, let's say, Norfolk St. or Morton St. or Blue Hill Ave. in Mattapan are every bit as safe and tourist-friendly as, let's say, Newbury St. in the Back Bay?

Laugh all you like, but sorry, I cannot in good conscience recommend that a tourist unthinkingly and carelessly wander the Forest Hills stop area, especially in the area I mentioned east of Washington St. Or stroll around Mattapan at all. Are you recommending they do so?