Valley Road station

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. Valley Road is the only station on the Line that is not accessible.

Valley Road
Valley Road station in March 2016
General information
Location291 Eliot Street
Milton, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°16′04″N 71°04′59″W
Line(s)Milton Branch
Platforms2 side platforms
Tracks2
Construction
AccessibleNo
History
OpenedDecember 21, 1929
RebuiltJune 24, 2006–December 22, 2007
Passengers
202310 daily boardings[1]
Services
Preceding station MBTA Following station
Capen Street
toward Mattapan
 Ashmont–Mattapan High-Speed Line Central Avenue
toward Ashmont
Location

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 had the second-lowest ridership of any MBTA rapid transit stop in 2010 at just 44 daily riders.[6] 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.[7]

The MBTA plans to convert the line to modern light rail equipment. All stations would have raised platforms for level boarding on the new vehicles; Valley Road and three other stations would be converted to island platforms. Construction cost for Valley Road station was estimated as $20.8 million – twice that of other intermediate stations on the line –in 2023.[1]

References
  1. "Mattapan Line Transformation Public Information Meeting" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. June 20, 2023.
  2. 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. "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF) (14th ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2014.
  7. "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.

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