By Jill Bongiorni, News Staff

As the Red Sox season begins, Brookline is banking on some new changes.

As of April 1, hours of operation and parking meter rates are extended during Red Sox home games for parking meters located within the St. Mary’s Commercial District. In doing so, the town of Brookline hopes to make back lost revenue for the town and ensure parking spaces will be available for customers of local merchant businesses.

“The Red Sox traffic has always had a huge impact on this area and the amount of foot traffic the store gets,” said Fiona Ye, sales coordinator of West Elm furniture store, located at 160 Brookline Ave. “We have a lot of customers from out of state and if they know there’s a Red Sox game going on, it may deter them from coming.”

To help ease parking burdens and ensure turnovers, the meters in the area now run until 10 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. on game days. Those right near the stadium continue to enforce a two-hour limit and still cost 75 cents per hour. However, new meters along the Green Line C Branch and Beacon Street now have a four hour limit and charge 75 cents per hour for the first two hours, then increase to $10 per hour until 10 p.m. on game days.

“I think that even with the price increases, it still beats parking in a lot near the stadium,” said John Botelho, 24, who has covered several Sox games for the Brockton Enterprise, a daily newspaper south of Boston. “You end up spending less money and it’s not an absolute log jam getting out of there after the game ends.”

While this option now costs game-goers about $21.50 to park on the street, it still beats paying the $30 to $40 it costs to park in the lot and is less of a fight to get out at the end of the night.

“Whenever we get out of the stadium, there is always so much traffic surrounding the ballpark because they close off Lansdowne Street and all of the parking garages are right there,” said Samantha Molzan, a sophomore biology major who has been to several Red Sox games. “Then people park along the street and are trying to leave at the same time. There are cops everywhere trying to direct traffic, and pedestrians, and it’s just a mess.”

Even aside from parking, Sox fans are hesitant to make the trip over to Fenway via car because of heavy traffic near the stadium. Unfortunately, sometimes circumstances force it.

“I was going to a game with my sister and her husband last year and we took a cab from their apartment downtown instead of hopping on the T like we usually do, because we were with my one-year-old niece,” middler journalism major Diana Pugliese said. “The traffic was insane and we were backed up forever. We ended up having to get out and walk the rest of the way because we were just sitting in dead stopped traffic and knew it was going to get worse.”

To ensure fluid movement and turnovers at meters on non-game days, permanent changes have been made. Meter hours have been extended from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Beacon Street between Williston Street to the Westbourne turnaround; Marion Street to the town line; on Harvard Street from Kent Street to the Allston border; all along Brookline Avenue; and the Centre Street East parking lot. Ten-hour meters have been extended an additional hour and meters along Chapel Street, Brookline Avenue and the Longwood MBTA lot will go from 75 cents per hour to $1 per hour.

While these changes have been in action for a full week, Ye said they have not had a noticeable impact on West Elm’s business.

“In our area, I feel like it hasn’t made a negative or a positive impact. Our customers are still remarking it’s hard to find a spot and still have to pay the meters on an hourly basis,” Ye said. “It still has only been a week since they changed the meters, so I don’t know how it will impact the business once the season gets going.”

While these changes may not have created a noticeable effect yet, some said the solution has created a win-win-win situation. Brookline is making more money, customers have more parking spaces available to them and Red Sox fans trying to park in Fenway still have a cheaper option they can turn to. However, those who live in the area and do not have designated parking spaces are still out of luck.

“I don’t blame Brookline for doing it, especially since towns are facing budget cuts all the time lately,” Botelho said. “Why not take advantage of the popularity of the Red Sox, especially off something as simple as parking meters?”