Braintree MBTA Parking Garage

The t in general has horrible customer service, the union needs to end, the garage is no exception to that rule, Also it’s always full

The parking garage is terrible. I can’t believe the positive reviews, except for the proximity to the highway. The garage is falling apart and completely too small… and it fills up by 8am. Outrageous for the amount of people that use the T. For seven dollars a day, they should be able to provide better service.

My car was keyed and someone wrote ‘asshole’ on it. Obviously no one at the garage or police station entertained my complaints. I parked here from 12−9pm on a Saturday. Who does that?

So, I won’t be nasty, because this is still a professional establishment. The parking garage, as far as maintenance is concerned, is alright. There are potholes but that’s obviously due to the bad weather and the plows. HOWEVER, the customer service at this garage provided by LAZ PARKING is atrocious. The attendants are literally getting paid to sit around and when needed to actually get up and help customers, their attitudes are disgusting. It’s as if it’s an inconvenience to them. Definitely not worth anyone’s time or money to deal with them.
Oh, and if you think that you’re going to this garage after 7:15 AM on the weekdays, you might as well just go to Quincy Adams.

Luckily we only have to use this once a year when we visit family in the area. It’s plus is convenience.
Not enough parking, make it bigger please! It’s a tad sketchy, luckily I’m never there alone. And then you want me to pay for this mess of a parking garage, ugh!

Park & ride

The Parking Garage at the Braintree T Station is very easy to reach from Route 3, which also means it’s easy to get onto Route 3 once you leave (even in the evening during rush hour). Also, because it’s at the first stop on the Quincy/​Braintree branch of the Red Line, you don’t have to wait a long time for a train.
I gave it 3 stars because there are a few problems parking in Braintree. Unless you pay $ 200/​month for «premium» parking (an outrageous price, since most people work 5 days a week, so on average they’re paying about $ 140 per month to park), you need to get there before 7:40 AM because the garage fills up quickly and there is no longer a sign on the highway to indicate that it is full (and then you waste 10 – 15 minutes getting off, driving there to find out it is full, turning around, getting back on the highway, and driving to Quincy). Even if you manage to get in the garage before it fills up, you might have to hunt for a space or park anywhere and hope you don’t get ticketed (I got ticketed once because there were 0 available spaces and I parked in a spot near a wall). There is no overflow parking (which would be a good idea, but the T doesn’t like to do things that make sense) and it’s not wise to park in the parking lots at any of the shopping centers near the station or your car will be towed.
If you do manage to get into the garage, it’s very difficult to find a parking space. Because the spaces are so narrow, some people think that means they can park in two spots (and those people should either be towed or charged double). If you manage to find a space, be very careful making your way to the train. There are a lot of drivers who don’t fully understand that the speed limit in the garage is not just a suggestion and there are others who don’t realize that the arrows painted on the ground mean «drive this way».
There are two handy kiosks near the escalator for the commuter rail station and three inside the station where you can pay in advance for parking with cash or a credit/​debit card. The toll collectors at the exit to the garage have been replaced by machines that collect and read your parking ticket. Although you can pay at these machines, it is not a good idea since you will end up holding up the line of cars trying to exit behind you. Also, if you try to pay by cash, you will need to wait for the attendant, which will hold up traffic. Instead, make sure you have paid for parking before you get back to your car.

DO NOT PARK HERE OVERNIGHT! So after a wonderful Birthday weekend I spent my drive back to Woodshole in a freezing back seat drive.
My BF lives in Woodshole so often we like to spend the weekend in Boston and stay on the Northside. This particular weekend was my Birthday and we had an amazing time. The weather was warm for January and we went to the theater, had dinner in the Italian district, and spent our time wandering the cafes late evening.
We parked on a Saturday afternoon and returned Sunday late morning. It was a sunny day and I was ready to get back to Falmouth because I wanted to visit the sheep and goat farm then take a long hike in the trails behind this special spot. My expectations for a beautiful and special day were suddenly crushed as I bounded up to the car and saw glass covering the ground.
The front passenger side window had been smashed out. My BF was furious and our entire mood changed.
Just the night before we saw someone run out on their check from a café. I HATE THIEVES. People can be such scum and I hope they get all what they deserve… out to the universe you go!
We called the authorities and I do have to say that the Briantree transportation police were on they ball. They arrived in 20 min, took fingerprints, and were just as disgisted as we were. Don’t clean up because they will look for prints and try to see if they are in the system. While we waited glass was thrown into the trash to expedite our departure. After all the information was gathered we were on our way to Kmart to get tape and plastic for the window. It was a cold ride back and I never got to take my hike. I even cried because my day had been wasted and I was stressed out. We will never park here again.
On a side note my BF told this story to his local friends who chuckled and said it happens all the time. On top of all this we still had to pay for parking. What a BUST!

Too bad we have to pay for this garage when it smells the way that it does. And what do they do with the $ anyway… because there are so many potholes. I just want a day that when I go up the stairs that I don’t have to smell the harsh and foul stink from someone’s pee.: (

I live in Brockton right near the Holbrook town line since 1991 and for the first several months I was using this lot and taking the Redline to Park Street station every day. But I got fed up because the lot filled up by 8 to 8:30am, the spaces were too small, and there was a 10 minute traffic jam leaving the parking lot every time a Redline train arrived. So from about 1992 to 2005 I drove 7 miles further to North Quincy Station and paid a lot less for the train and less for parking as well. Plus the lot in NQ is much easier to get in and out of and the spaces are wider.
But in 2005 the T started charging the same for a pass to Braintree as to North Quincy. Plus I was getting tired of always having to stand, and sometimes I couldn’t even find room to board the train at NQ. So I went back to Braintree. I was told the lot still fills up soon after 8am, so I changed my schedule to arrive to work at 7:15am, and I would get to the lot around 6:30am when there was plenty of parking available.
The price has increased a number of times. I believe it was $ 2 back in ’91 and now it’s $ 7. Sometimes I have to drive my Chevy Traverse and the spaces simply aren’t wide enough. If I park perfectly between the lines there is only about 6″ between my car and the line on either side. If the vehicle next to me is also large, it means only about 1 foot of clearance between the two, sometimes less. That leaves barely enough (and sometimes not enough) room to physically get into the car. Plus my car was keyed on one occasion, when I guess someone was upset that I was parked too close. I’m always discovering new scratches on both my cars from this lot, probably from people squeezing past with hand bags, coat buttons, etc.
I’ll also second David V’s statement that one of the two entrance gates is often closed. This can cause a gridlock back up in which vehicles turning left into the station have to wait many cycles of the traffic light, while vehicles turning right keep coming and filling up the limited space in the entrance-​way prior to the gates. And don’t even get me started about what happens when you’re the first to discover that one of the gates isn’t working. You have to try and back out of it, but there are already cars behind you, and every time you try to back out another car pulls in behind you. It can easily take you 10 minutes to get into the other lane.
If this isn’t enough, there is a horrible stench in the stairwell where you exit to cross the bus and cab lane to the station. It was like that in the early 90’s and I’m guessing they haven’t cleaned it since. Once you clear the stench, you’ll find that there are passenger cars every day using the cab and bus lanes in spite of the Do NOT Enter/​$ 50 fine signs, which is never enforced. While the buses and cabs always yield to pedestrians, some of the passenger cars (which again are NOT even supposed to be there) do not. I guess it makes sense that if they don’t respect some laws they won’t respect others. I’ve notified both T police and Braintree police on several occasions but I don’t think they ever bothered to enforce the restriction on passenger cars in the cab and/​or bus lanes. I’ve never seen a cruiser there, much less ticketing anyone.
Last spring I was almost struck by a man in a Lexus 350 who dropped off a woman at the curb in the lane for buses only. He shot straight across the crosswalk only about 3 feet in front of me (I had to stop short to keep from walking into the side of his vehicle) and came to an abrupt stop about 100 feet beyond me to let his passenger out. I then watched as he raced back into the parking lot and realized he was also going to take the train. So I waited and confronted him as he entered the station. Instead of an apology he was ready to fight. This was a well dressed professional looking guy and I didn’t approach him screaming and out of control. This is the mentality you find at this place and I really think that the poor layout and functionality of this parking lot fosters that anger.
I’m so fed up with this parking lot that I recently went back to driving to North Quincy even though I drive 7 extra miles in very heavy traffic each way, pay just as much for the train, and never get a seat in the morning. That’s how much I hate parking in the Braintree T parking lot. It p*ssed me off every day, and so now I find myself noticeably calmer and less angry. If anyone reading this knows of free or inexpensive parking not far from the Braintree T, I’d appreciate if you’d share that.

The MBTA advertises that taking public transportation is a «no-​brainer», because it is supposed to be cheaper than driving. It costs $ 7 a day to park in Braintree, which ends up being $ 140 a month, $ 1680 a year, plus the Charlie card and of course gas to get to and from the station. This station is filled with pot holes, at least once a week one of the entrance gates is broken, which causes a back-​up, and there is usually a mess getting out of the garage at the end of the day. The drop-​off/​pick-​up area at the end of the day is awful as well. If you can, avoid parking in this MBTA garage at all costs.

This lot is always packed first thing in the morning — how do all these people get here so early?!
Getting in and out is easy though, there are two entrances, a very ample drop off/​pick up area, and is relatively safe.
This station is popular because it was one of the first suburb commuter rail stations and is the end of the Red Line stop.

I have love for the MBTA. but not this parking garage. My car has been hit 3 different times while parked here during the day. There are large potholes everywhere. During the winter this place is like an ice rink. If you are running late you might as well call a taxi to bring you to the train — spaces are usually full by 7:15am. I will say one thing, there is a very nice attendant who is from Africa who is usually on the right-​hand side booth when you are paying to leave, he is a peach. Other attendants are usually either indifferent or pretty crabby. I wishwishwish my house was close enough to walk every morning — I feel pretty screwed paying $ 5 a day to park here in a place that isn’t well maintained. the cash obviously isn’t going back into the garage at all.
Parking Spaces: 1,281
Parking Rate: $ 5.00
Accessible Spaces: 22
Bike Spaces: 30