L.A. leads the league in stadium transit errors

The final time that this column visited Dodger Stadium was in 2003 for a Bruce Springsteen concert. At that time, the parking fee was $10 for ballgames but was raised to $20 for the concert. Nice.

Now comes the Dodgers' new parking plan, which has brought fresh rounds of complaints over the bad traffic before and after games. So let's begin there

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How do other cities handle baseball traffic?

They have encouraged the building of new downtown stadiums near mass transit, or they have built mass transit near existing stadiums.

So baseball fans in Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago (Cubs and White Sox), Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis, New York (Mets and Yankees), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Washington can all take a subway or light rail to the game.

Metrolink and Amtrak trains have a station next to Angel Stadium in Anaheim, although the train schedules are a bit spotty for baseball fans. Even Phoenix and Seattle are building light-rail lines that will stop near their ballparks. It should be noted that Phoenix is a sprawling mess, and Seattle's traffic is five degrees beyond bad.

As for the Dodgers, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its predecessor agencies offered bus service to the games from 1962 -- when Dodger Stadium opened -- until 1994, when it was halted for budget reasons.

In 2004, the Dodgers tried running a Friday night shuttle service from Union Station to the games, but that was stopped after one season because of low ridership. On average, the MTA reported, only 400 fans each game used the service.

The cash-strapped MTA last year looked into restoring bus service using a contractor, but decided not to because it would require an annual subsidy of $153,900 to $202,500 per year. County supervisor and MTA board member Mike Antonovich is still in the process of blowing a gasket that the shuttle isn't being run.

Sigh. No, make that 18 sighs.

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And the historical perspective?

Let's go back to April 1962, when the first Saturday night regular season game at Dodger Stadium also caused a parking meltdown. How bad was it? The parking lot became so constipated with cars that the team had to turn away fans -- including those with tickets to the game, according to a Times story that year. And the game wasn't even a sellout.