In a measure that hints at the Red Sox’s prolonged stay at the current Fenway Park, the team received approval last week to close the park’s adjacent Yawkey Way to traffic and fans without tickets during game days next season.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority has approved the proposal to lease the street to the Red Sox for approximately 80 days of the season for the next 10 years. The details of the plan, including the cost of the lease, have not been finalized, and spokespersons for the Red Sox and the BRA would not comment on the cost.

As at the end of last season, turnstiles will be put up, closing Yawkey Way to traffic, according to the proposal. Only ticketed fans will be allowed in, although official escorts can walk pedestrians through the area.

The BRA, with the responsibility of ‘acquiring, selling and leasing real estate to achieve economic redevelopment,’ will lease the street under its power of eminent domain. The proposal, however, was the team’s idea.

‘The Red Sox came to us with the idea of closing the street to traffic,’ said Meredith Baumann, a spokeswoman for the BRA.

Kevin Shea, a Red Sox spokesman, said the proposal’s goal was to create more space for fans and allow them to enter and exit the ballpark as they wish.

‘You’re providing fans with more room in that area around Gate A, which is very cramped now,’ he said. ‘At the same time, you’re creating a carnival atmosphere.’

Other ballparks such as Camden Yards in Baltimore or Turner Field in Atlanta have tried similar designs, Shea noted.

Street vendors not approved by the Red Sox will be barred from Yawkey, but are allowed to set up outside the turnstiles and around the Fenway neighborhood, according to Baumann.

Although there has not been widespread opposition to the plan, the Boston Globe reported last week that the publisher of Boston Baseball, an independent magazine, is suing the Red Sox for the right to sell on Yawkey.

On a recent winter afternoon, Yawkey Way was deserted. Street lamps and garbage cans decorated with green ‘Save Fenway’ bumper stickers stood in front of restaurants and memorabilia shops closed for the off-season.

Howard Berman, manager of The Souvenir Store on Yawkey Way, said it was too soon to tell how the plan might affect his business.

‘It cuts both ways,’ Berman said.

While the Yawkey shops would lose the business of fans without tickets during games, they ‘now have access to all those people inside the stadium,’ Berman said.

Berman said he could not estimate the true effect on sales when the street was blocked off at the end of last season.

‘From a fan’s perspective, it gives you a few more amenities,’ he added. ‘They’re trying to do what they can to improve the park and stay here.’

Shea emphasized that the benefits were solely for the fans, but said that no decisions had been made about the future of Fenway.

‘We are making small improvements to the ballpark to enhance the fan experience,’ Shea said. ‘The greater question of renovating or not has not been answered yet.’

The city would benefit from the plan as well, according to Baumann.

‘The Red Sox’ plans to make improvements to Yawkey Way are extremely valuable,’ Baumann said. ‘Improvements in lighting and sidewalk improvements all of these things in this time of economic uncertainty that the city is not really able to do.’