😴🚇 Now arriving: Late-night T service!

It’s Monday, Boston.

⛴️ Consider this your permission to play hooky: In honor of the National Parks Service’s birthday, today’s ferries to Spectacle Island are FREE. There’s just one catch: You have to pick the tickets up IRL, which you can do at the Boston Harbor City Cruises Ferry Center at 8 a.m. Good luck!

🥳 And happy birthday to B-Sider Rahmat A! We’re not telling you to call out sick to work and spend your b-day exploring Spectacle Island. But we’re also not … not telling you to do that. Either way, have an amazing day! 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• COVID numbers on the rise

• Mayor’s race vibe check

• Red Sox: 1. Squirrel: also 1. 

Up first…

TRANSPORTATION

The T has a new bedtime

Imagine: You’re headed home at 1 a.m. and you’re NOT in a $40 Uber. Now stop imagining, because starting this weekend, the MBTA is really extending evening weekend service on the T, plus some bus and ferry routes.

Here’s what to know:

🌃 This isn’t the MBTA’s first late-night service rodeo. But it is the MBTA’s first late-night service rodeo with GM Phillip Eng at the helm. Whereas previous late-night pilots flopped thanks to high operating costs and low ridership, Eng said this version is here to stay “indefinitely.” And we have reason to believe it: This attempt will be much cheaper (think: $2 million per year compared to $14 million), and success won’t be measured by ridership. Instead, Eng is framing the changes as a public service that the MBTA is prepared to fund. 

Now, onto said changes …

🚇 The entire T will run an hour later on Fridays and Saturdays. Buuuuut exactly when the last train will leave the station is still unclear. What we do know is that, currently, the last trains on each line run between midnight and 1 a.m., and during the added hour, trains will run every 30 minutes on the Green Line and the Red Line’s Ashmont and Braintree branches, and every 15 minutes everywhere else. All that said, we’d check the MBTA Go app to be sure.

🚌 The same goes for some buses. Routes 1, 22, 39, 66, 110, SL1, SL3, and SL5 will get the same treatment as the T (running an hour later on Fridays and Saturdays). But the agency’s five most popular lines have it even better: The 23, 28, 57, 111, and 116 will get an hour of extended service every night of the week. You can check the new schedules here.

⛴️ Even a few ferries are getting in on the fun. From now until Sept. 27, you can expect additional late-night trips on the Hingham/Hull ferry on Fridays, AND on the Eastie and Charlestown ferries on Fridays and Saturdays. Here are the *exact* timing changes. 

🤑 As a welcome gift, it’ll be free for the first month! Welcome gift … incentivizing tool … who’s to say! Either way, every weekend from Sept. 5-6 to Oct. 3-4, the entire MBTA will be fare-free after 9 p.m. That goes for the T, commuter rail, buses, ferries, and RIDE! Thank you, Train Daddy!

💬 Any questions? You can find all the info here.

QUICK QUESTION!

🌃 What do you think about the T’s new late-night service?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

😷 Mass.’ COVID numbers are on the rise. New year, new COVID variant. Mass. (among other places) is seeing a rise in COVID wastewater levels as the new “Stratus” variant arrives on the scene. Symptom-wise, Stratus is nothing new, and neither is a late-August surge as folks return to school and from vacation. What *will* be different this year? Vaccinations, given the CDC’s delay in issuing recommendations and likely changes to COVID guidance. Until we hear more from the feds, experts recommend listening to local and state public health agencies and testing if you’re sick.

🗳️ It’s time for a mayoral race vibe check! With less than two weeks until the primary, let’s just say we wouldn’t want to be Josh Kraft. Polling shows Mayor Wu leading Kraft by 30 points and enjoying much higher favorability ratings despite Kraft’s campaign spending nearly nine times what hers did in July. Though Kraft’s spot on the November ballot is pretty much a lock, if he wants a fighting chance at winning, he’ll have to zero in on remedying his public image and making Wu answer for her vulnerabilities.

👙 Protestors are baring it ALL this week. The Top Famous Topless Protest is coming back to Downtown Boston on Aug. 26. At noon, folks from the Go Topless and Equalititty movements plan to take off their tops and march from the Common to the State House in protest of nudity laws that they say discriminate against women. However, it’s worth noting that the protest is co-organized by the founder of the controversial Raëlian movement, described as a “UFO-based religion” that believes humans were created by an alien race. So … yeah! Here’s the info.

👏🏾 This week, we’re doing it *for the culture.* It’s “For the Culture” week in Boston, which means the city will be jam-packed with events celebrating the cultural influence of its Black communities. The main events will be a day honoring Boston-native rap group New Edition and the HBCU Classic, a football game celebrating historically Black colleges and universities. But don’t miss Hella Black Trivia, a City Hall pep rally, the Black Outside Block Party, and HBCU Day at Fenway. Check out the whole lineup of events here.

THINGS TO DO

Weekday plans

🍿 Soak up the last batch of outdoor movies. A free outdoor screening of “Legally Blonde” tonight at Time Out Market WITH free popcorn? What … like it’s hard?  

☕ Perk up with $1 coffee. George Howell is serving up $1 cups of hot, iced, and cold brew coffee at its new Lyrik Back Bay locale from 12 to 2 p.m. on Aug 26. Bonus: The first 100 customers get a complimentary tote!

🛍️ Find your next $5 outfit. Friendly reminder: Covet runs a $5 bin sale (!) the last Wednesday of every month (Aug. 27). You could be like Emily and score this $258 dress for $5 … 

🌵 Plank it out in a plant store. The only thing better than taking a yoga class in a plant store is taking home a post-yoga plant from said plant store. That’s exactly the plan at Sprout by Cityscapes yoga class Aug. 27. 

🥜 Cure your fluffy seagull FOMO. The fluff-filled Cape coffee drink sweeping across your FYP just got a boozy twist at The 88 Club piano bar. Imagine: An espresso martini meets a PB and fluff.

💃 Defy gravity in the taproom. Aeronaut is combining two of our favorite things: drag and Broadway soundtracks, at this Broadway Drag Night on Aug. 27. Bonus: B-Side Members get 25% off. <3

👊 Get ready to RUMBLE! Buff guys wrestling + good beer = this Chaotic Wrestling Owlmania event at Night Shift Brewing on Aug. 28, a.k.a., your Thursday plans.

🦈 Start practicing your dun dun … dun dun … ‘Cause starting Aug. 29, the Coolidge is showing several screenings of “Jaws” in 35MM throughout the weekend.

ONE LAST THING

Squirrel on the loose!

Red Sox rookie Jhostynxon Garcia’s MLB debut was one to remember. But not because of him. As Garcia stepped up to the plate at Yankee Stadium for the second time in his career on Friday night, so did a mischievous squirrel. 

Although it spent just over a minute on the field, the squirrel totally stole the show, running into Garcia’s leg, having a full-on stare-down with Yankees pitcher Max Fried, and notably, scaring their first baseman Ben Rice, who later said “It made a little noise at me.”

Meanwhile, Garcia was in disbelief. “I said, ‘Really, that’s going to happen to me in my MLB debut, that’s unbelievable,’” he told reporters through the team’s translator. 

But ultimately, it’d take more than a rogue squirrel to keep the Sox down. They defeated the Yankees 1-0 and used a pic of the little guy to celebrate.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🐿️ Thanks for reading! Absolutely no fear of humans? Loves the spotlight? That squirrel was BORN to live on the Common. 

🚃 The results are in: And we’re impressed! 56% of B-Siders say they never skip out on paying their MBTA fares. One slightly less scrupulous reader said: “I mean, sometimes the Green Line is just BEGGING for it...” 

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