Valley Road station

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Valley Road
Valley Road station facing inbound, March 2016.JPG
Valley Road station in March 2016
Location291 Eliot Street, Milton, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°16′04″N 71°04′59″W / 42.267772°N 71.083025°W / 42.267772; -71.083025Coordinates: 42°16′04″N 71°04′59″W / 42.267772°N 71.083025°W / 42.267772; -71.083025
Line(s)Milton branch
Platforms2 side platforms
Tracks2
Passengers
201044 (weekday inbound average)[1]
Services
Preceding station MBTA.svg MBTA Following station
Capen Street
toward Mattapan
Ashmont–Mattapan High-Speed Line Central Avenue
toward Ashmont

Valley Road station is a light rail station in Milton, Massachusetts. It serves the MBTA's Ashmont–Mattapan High-Speed Line, a branch of the Red Line. The station is located off Eliot Street near Valley Road and consists of two side platforms that serve the lines's two tracks. Unlike all other stations on the Line, Valley Road is not accessible.

History[]

Valley Road station in February 1930

Valley Road opened on December 21, 1929, along with Central Avenue and Mattapan as the second phase of the Ashmont–Mattapan High-Speed Line.[2] Like Capen Street (opened in 1930) and Butler (1931), it had not previously been the site of a railroad station.[3] In 1932, local politicians advocated for the construction of a footbridge across the Neponset River to provide transit access to the Boston Consumptives Hospital from the station.[4] The bridge was not built; until the Harvest River Bridge carrying the Lower Neponset River Trail was built about 0.2 miles (0.32 km) west in 2016, there was no pedestrian crossing of the river between Mattapan Square and Central Avenue.[5]

The whole line closed from June 24, 2006, to December 22, 2007, for a complete renovation.[2] Unlike the other stations, Valley Road was not made accessible; its position below a hillside would have required a complex set of ramps. This was deemed too expensive for the stop, which has the second-lowest ridership of any MBTA rapid transit stop at just 44 daily riders.[1] As part of a 2018 amendment to the settlement of Joanne Daniels-Finegold, et al. v. MBTA, the MBTA agreed to study whether and how to make the stop accessible.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF) (14th ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2014.
  2. ^ a b Belcher, Jonathan. "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). Boston Street Railway Association.
  3. ^ Karr, Ronald Dale (2017). The Rail Lines of Southern New England (2 ed.). Branch Line Press. p. 377. ISBN 9780942147124.
  4. ^ "Harrison Sq Station and Footbridge to Hospital Sought". Boston Globe. February 4, 1932. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "New Bridge Over the Greenway" (Press release). Neponset River Watershed Association. July 2016.
  6. ^ "AMENDED SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT (With Attachments A, B and C and Exhibit X)" (PDF). Joanne Daniels-Finegold et al. v. MBTA. December 4, 2018. p. 11.

External links[]

Media related to Valley Road station at Wikimedia Commons

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