Back of the Hill station

Back of the Hill station is a surface stop on the light rail MBTA Green Line E branch, located in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is named after, and primarily serves, the adjacent Back of the Hill apartment complex, a Section 8 development for elderly and disabled residents. Back of the Hill is located on the street running section of the E branch on South Huntington Avenue. The station has no platforms; passengers wait in bus shelters (shared with route 39 buses) on the sidewalks and cross a traffic lane to reach Green Line trains.[2]

Back of the Hill
An inbound train at Back of the Hill station in 2011
General information
LocationSouth Huntington Avenue at Back of the Hill
Boston, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°19′45.79″N 71°6′39.46″W
PlatformsNone (passengers wait on sidewalk)
Tracks2
ConnectionsBus transport MBTA bus: 39
Construction
AccessibleNo
History
Openedc. 1982
Passengers
201135 (weekday average)[1]
Services
Preceding station MBTA Following station
Heath Street
Terminus
 Green Line Riverway
toward Medford/​Tufts
Location

History
Two trains at Back of the Hill in 1983

The Boston Elevated Railway opened streetcar tracks on the newly-laid-out South Huntington Avenue between Centre Street and Huntington Avenue on May 11, 1903. The company began Jamaica Plain–Park Street service via South, Centre, South Huntington, and Huntington as a branch of existing Boston–Brookline service on Huntington Avenue.[3][4]: 61  All Huntington Avenue service (except for Northeastern University and Brigham Circle short turns) operated on South Huntington after September 10, 1938.[5] The line became part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1947, and part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in 1967; it was designated as the E Branch of the MBTA Green Line in 1967.[6]

By the 1970s, E Branch trains stopped at Riverway and Heath Street, with no stop between them.[7] The Back of the Hill apartment complex, located just north of Heath Street, was built in 1980 and opened in 1981.[8][9][10] The E Branch was closed for track work from June 21, 1980, to June 26, 1982; trains began stopping at Back of the Hill then or after.[6]

Back of the Hill is the least-used stop on the MBTA subway system, averaging only 35 riders per day by a 2011 count. It was one of only four stops to average fewer than 100 riders per day.[1][note 1] In 2021, the MBTA indicated plans to modify the Heath Street–Brigham Circle section of the E branch with accessible platforms to replace the existing non-accessible stopping locations.[11]

References
  1. "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF) (14th ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2014.
  2. "Back of the Hill Station Neighborhood Map" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. July 2012.
  3. "New Route Open". Boston Globe. May 11, 1903. p. 11 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  4. Clarke, Bradley H.; Cummings, O.R. (1997). Tremont Street Subway: A Century of Public Service. Boston Street Railway Association. ISBN 0938315048.
  5. Barber, Richard (March–April 1984). "Fifty Years Ago... The Last Days of Cypress Street Carhouse". Rollsign. Vol. 21, no. 3/4. Boston Street Railway Association. pp. 3–7.
  6. Belcher, Jonathan. "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). Boston Street Railway Association.
  7. Thomas K. Dyer Inc. (1972). "Green Line Station Mileage from Lechmere". Plan for Acquisition and Use of Railroad Rights-of-Way. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
  8. Seidman, Karl; Lee, Tunney; Selinger, Elise (April 2016). From Urban Renewal to Affordable Housing Production System: Boston Mayors and the Evolution of Community Development Corporations in Boston (PDF) (Report). Community Innovators Lab, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. p. 39.
  9. "Back of the Hill Apartments to Remain Affordable for Low-Income Seniors and Disabled Residents" (PDF) (Press release). Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency. November 20, 2006.
  10. "Mission Hill battle is finally won". Boston Globe. February 15, 1981. p. 35 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  11. Peña, Angel (June 21, 2021). "Green Line Transformation (GLT) Update" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. p. 7.
  1. The others, as of 2014, are Valley Road (44 riders/day), Capen Street (58 riders/day), and Cedar Grove (91 riders/day), all on the Ashmont–Mattapan High Speed Line.

Media related to Back of the Hill station at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.