Police Activity
According to boston.com, Park Street Station was closed for part of rush hour this morning because of a strong odor. That’s nothing new at Park Street, where I’ve caught a whiff of burning trains before.
The odd thing about this report is that it contradicts my experience this morning, when Park Street was open on both levels, but my Red Line train skipped Downtown Crossing entirely. At Park Street, the conductor said that Downtown Crossing was closed due to “police activity,” and that people who wanted the Orange Line should go back upstairs and take the Green Line to Copley. Apparently there had been a shuttle bus or bussing plan, but that had been changed to the Copley scheme. There is no connection to the Orange Line at Copley, by the way. Who knows what happened to those poor commuters?
Downtown Crossing and Park Street are connected by a pedestrian tunnel (as well as by the Red Line), so maybe the Downtown Crossing closure was a direct result of the Park Street incident. I was already wondering what was taking so long when my train reached Park Street, but I didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. Who knows what I breathed in as my Red Line train was speeding past Downtown Crossing?