Jackie Robinson could take transit to the stadium in Brooklyn; but these Trolley Dodgers won't have a trolley.Blogdowntown reports that the chances that transit service comes back to Dodger Stadium are about the same as the Dodgers clearing out parking spaces for helicopter parking. Despite a verbal commitment to the City Council last year that they would try and find sponsors for the shuttle, they refuse to talk to team sponsors and won't of course wouldn't dream of actually paying for what is essentially private shuttle service themselves.
In other words, the Dodgers think it was very nice of the city to provide free shuttles to their stadium for the post-All Star Game contests and playoffs; but isn't willing to do anything besides sending out press releases taking credit for the project to support it.
Eric Richardson reports:
Earlier promises that the team would help the city find sponsors fora 2009 service seem to have fallen by the wayside this offseason. "InJune, when the council approved the two month demo, the Dodgers hadcommitted that ... they would go out and the end of the season and talkto their sponsors," Lefton told the committee. "When we met with themin December, they indicated that they did not want to talk to theexisting sponsors and that they did not want to mess with theirexisting sponsorship arrangements."
The city has attempted to find its own sponsorship deal for the service, but has been unsuccessful in doing so.
To add insult to injury, the LADOT spent their time in the offseason wisely, designing a new route for the service that moved hundreds of Dodger fans to the stadium that would avoid the traffic jams on Sunset and bring the buses into the east gate.
So Streetsbloggers, let's help the Dodgers out and come up with some ways to refund the Dodger Shuttle. For example, if the Dodgers charged a quarter surcharge on car parking for regular season games, they would come up with all the needed funds and might even have a surplus to pay for bus service for playoff games. Simlarly, if the Dodgers could convince Manny Ramirez to play for free for his first nine at bats, assuming he only comes to the plate 550 times as he did last year, again the bus service would be paid for with a surplus.
If you got any ideas to help out the Dodgers and their fans, feel free to leave it in the comments section.
Photo: Phil Schillachi/Flickr
