🚃👻 BOO! The Green Line is down.

📸🐶 Is your fur baby the cutest in the WORLD? Prove it by entering Gifford Cat Shelter’s cutest pet photo contest! Enter your pet for $10, or vote for your fave. $1 = 1 vote, and all the cash gets donated to the shelter. Good luck beating out SpongeBob Squarepaws though. 

⭐ This year’s Globe Summit has serious star power. Think: Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s, Elin Hilderbrand, Gov. Maura Healey, and more! B-Side Members get in for free (start a free trial here!) and code BSIDE25 gets you 25% off.

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Back to the trenches, Green Liners. From 8 p.m. Oct. 24 to Oct. 31, the line’s D branch will be OOO between Kenmore and Riverside.

Here’s what to know:

🚃 Local shuttles will make all the usual stops … except one. And the unlucky stop is … Beaconsfield! Shuttles will skip it all shutdown long, so if that’s your usual stop, the MBTA recommends walking the extra four minutes to Dean Road on the C branch. FWIW, they also recommend folks who board at Reservoir save themselves a shuttle ride and just take the two-minute walk to Cleveland Circle instead.

🚌 In it for the long haul? Try an *express* shuttle. In addition to local shuttles, a special group of express shuttles will make regular stops at Riverside, Woodland, Waban, Eliot, and Newton Highlands before running express to Copley. Note: If you wanna swap between the two shuttles, do it at Newton Highlands. 

⏰ Per usual, you’ll need to budget extra time. The MBTA says riders traveling between Riverside and Government Center should anticipate an extra 30 to 45 minutes on top of their usual commute. 

☕ This won’t be the end of D branch drama. Warning: Just four days after this Green Line shutdown ends, another will begin between Park Street and Union Square, as well as Medford/Tufts. More on that later …

🚲 One way to avoid the chaos: Free Bluebikes! During the shutdown, anyone — yes, even those unaffected by the shutdown — can claim five FREE Bluebike unlocks by using code MBTAGREEN1024 in the Bluebikes app’s rewards section. 

⚠️ Reminder: There is a point to all of this madness. Namely, crash prevention. While you’re wasting away on a shuttle bus, the MBTA will be installing the Green Line Train Protection System (GLTPS) which will hopefully put a stop to the line’s little ~collision and derailment~ habit. 

👀 Need more info? You can find it here!

🧙 P.S. If you’re under 30 and do use them regularly (especially if you’ve ever used an Etsy or TikTok witch), we would love to chat with you for a story! Email Gia at [email protected].

🏘️ Is Mass. on track to hit its housing goals? Yes and no. That’s according to a new report by Boston Indicators. The ultimate solution to Greater Boston’s housing crisis = building more housing. The good news? Housing production is on the rise (think: 71,135 new units in the past five-ish years), which would put us on track to hit our lofty 10-year goal. The bad news? Fewer approved permits for future projects (~9,000 in 2025 compared to ~15,000 in 2021) indicate things could slow WAY down.

💸 Rent relief *could* be on the way for furloughed federal workers. With no end in sight to the federal shutdown, and November rent payments on the horizon, state Sen. Lydia Edwards is attempting to provide some relief. Enter: the Federal Employee and Service Member Civil Relief Act, which would block landlords from evicting residents for missing payments as a result of the shutdown (and allow them to tap into last month’s rent deposits to cover it). That said, given the tight turnaround, it’s unclear whether the act could be passed before rent’s due. Stay tuned.

🚦 Red means stop, and green means go. Right? Some Mass. drivers aren’t so sure. Per a new study from UMass Amherst, local drivers are struggling to figure out pedestrian hybrid beacons (PHBs), a.k.a. those fancy, light-up crosswalks. At PHBs, nearly 25% are running red lights, and 65% are driving straight through the “stop, then proceed if clear” phase, which poses some serious danger for pedestrians. FWIW, compared to the standard green, yellow, and red, the hybrid beacons’ five different signal phases are a little confusing. Here’s what they all mean.

🍺 Calling all beer lovers! Boston.com officially dubbed the top four breweries in Mass., and they ALL have outposts in Boston: Tree House Brewing Company (which has a pop-up beer garden in the Pru) took the top spot thanks to its consistently high ratings and iconic flagship IPA, Julius. Seaport’s Trillium took the No. 2 spot, with its hoppy Headroom Double IPA and moody upstairs cocktail lounge. Rounding out the list: Mighty Squirrel in Fenway and Cambridge’s Lamplighter. Read the whole thing (and see 100+ more reader-recommended brews) here.

Below are some of the hottest local things to do. This month, B-Side members can save more than $150 across our events, in addition to over 60 other awesome perks.

🎥 GlobeDocs B-Side Night | Oct. 23 | 5:30 p.m. B-Side party, 7 p.m. screening | $15 regular, $10 member | The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema | Join us for our designated B-Side screening of the A24 film “André is an Idiot.” Join us beforehand for our B-Side pre-party. Book here!

🍔 Free soft serve in Seaport | Oct. 26, all day | The Block at Woods Hill | The Block at Woods Hill has a burger that rivals some of our Boston faves, only available on Sundays. This Sunday, when members try the burger, they can get a free house-made soft serve.

🤓 Pumpkin Painting with GF Boston | Oct. 26 | 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. | Quincy Market Upstairs | $35 regular, $30 member | Decorate your own four mini pumpkins with paint and flower petals while making new friends and enjoying some light refreshments and bites. Get tickets here!

🎪 Big Night Live Workout | Oct. 28 | 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. | FREE | Big Night Live | Join Alyssa Pannozi of Rev’d Fitness for a bodyweight strength mat class followed by snacks, drinks, and healthcare activations from Blue Cross Massachusetts that actually offer clarity. Save your spot here!

There’s nothing like a TD Garden tribute video to make a giant man emo. It happened with Marcus Smart, it happened with Linus Ullmark, and now, we can add former Bruins captain Brad Marchand to the list.

ICYMI: On Tuesday, 16-year Bruin Marchand returned to TD for the first time since being traded to their rival Florida Panthers last year (who went on to win it all, BTW). 

Given his new enemy-status as a Panther, Marchand wasn’t sure what kind of reception he’d get back in Boston. But based on this three-minute standing O while a highlight reel of his time as a Bruin played on the jumbotron, and some deafening “Marchy! Marchy!” chants, we’d say he was missed.

But the sweetest part? The look on his face while the video played. Let’s just say: Tears were shed. 

— Written by Gia Orsino, Emily Schario, and Claire Nicholas

🏒 Thanks for reading! Are we SURE that’s the same Brad Marchand who punched a dude on the ice four days ago?

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, TKTK.

🏀 The results are in: 53% of B-Siders say that the Celtics are going to the playoffs. One reader said: “Wouldn't be caught dead voting against a Boston team.” Fair enough!

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].