Mayor Walsh Explains Why Boston Can't Have Sports Parades On Weekends

An overhead view of the Patriots' parade on Tuesday. (Billie Weiss/Getty Images)

BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — It was a familiar and persistent refrain from MBTA Commuter Rail riders who waited well over an hour to board a train home from Tuesday's Patriots Super Bowl victory parade—why can't we hold these things on the weekend, when people aren't trying to get to and from work?

Last night on WBZ NewsRadio's Nightside, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said it's a great idea, but it won't work out.

"Ideally, we'd love to have it on a weekend," Walsh agreed. "That would be the perfect situation. Less traffic in town, more opportunity, you could run the trains on a full service and have pretty much empty trains that you wouldn't have in the workday, but unfortunately, it doesn't play that way."

The problem is that players' contracts stipulate that their obligations end just a few days after the championship game.

"The players are under contract," Walsh said. "They leave, and you'd have a duck boat parade with maybe Bob Kraft, or an owner, and that's about it—same with the Red Sox, same with the Bruins, same with the Celtics."

So, unless the Celtics, Bruins, or Sox happen to clinch their championships late in the week, we're stuck with million-plus-strong victory rallies messing up the commutes of Boston's working people.

WBZ NewsRadio's Kendall Buhl ( @KBuhlWBZ ) reports


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