Davis station (MBTA)

The first transit service to what would become Davis Square[lower-alpha 1] was a horsecar line to Union Square, Somerville via Elm Street and Somerville Avenue, which was opened by the Somerville Horse Railroad (later part of the Cambridge Railroad) in 1858 and extended to Lechmere Square in 1864.[5][6][7]^: 205 Its carhouse was located on Dover Street just west of Elm Street.[8] A second route to Lechmere Square was opened in 1888 by successor West End Street Railway and electrified on July 14, 1894; the Elm Street route was electrified on November 23, 1895.[7]^: 205 Clarendon Hill Carhouse opened on August 8, 1896, replacing the Dover Street facility.[9][7]^: 205 The two routes were converted to trolleybus on November 8, 1941, and to bus on March 31, 1963; the Elm Street line is now route 87 and the Highland Avenue line route 88.[7]

West Somerville station in 1903

When opened in 1846, the Lexington Branch split from the Fitchburg Railroad at West Cambridge. In 1870, the Boston and Lowell Railroad (B&L) bought the Lexington Branch to prevent it from becoming a competitor.[10]^: 278 The B&L built a cutoff from Lake Street to Somerville Junction, which opened on December 1, 1870.[11][12] Among the stations on the line was Elm Street, located in the triangle between Elm Street (now College Avenue) and Holland Street.[8] In January 1876, William Robinson installed one of the first test applications of his track circuit signaling system on the line between Elm Street and North Avenue. On June 14, 1876, Pedro II of Brazil travelled to Elm Street station to view the system.[13][14]

The Massachusetts Central Railroad began service on October 1, 1881; it used most of the 1870-built cutoff to reach Boston.[15][10]^: 216 Operations were suspended from 1882 to 1884; it was leased by the B&L in 1886.[10]^: 216 The station was renamed to West Somerville in the mid-1880s.[16][17][18] The B&L was acquired by the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) in 1887.[10]^: 280 The streetcar and railroad service stimulated substantial development in the 1870s and 1880s as Davis Square quickly grew into an active commercial center. A boom in residential construction followed in the 1890s.[19]

The city proposed to eliminate the grade crossings on the line, including the pair of College Avenue and Holland Street at Davis Square, in the early 1900s.[20] Most grade crossings on the Fitchburg Railroad mainline were eliminated over the next decade, but those on the Lexington Branch cutoff were not.[21] On January 31, 1915, the West Somerville station building was moved west of Holland Street at the request of the mayor to improve conditions in the square.[22][23] By this time, the station was often called Davis Square, though its official name remained West Somerville.[24][25][26] The B&M discontinued ticket and baggage service at the station in 1924.[27]

In 1926–27, as part of construction of a new centralized freight yard in Somerville, the B&M built two new sections of track which allowed the Lexington Branch and the Central Massachusetts Railroad to use the Fitchburg mainline east of Alewife Brook Parkway.[28] On April 24, 1927, passenger service was rerouted over the rebuilt line; North Cambridge, West Somerville, and Somervile Highlands stations were closed.[29] Although residents were opposed to the closures, the B&M wished to avoid the grade crossings on the line, which had seen 70 crashes in the past six years.[30] The old line through Davis Square became the freight-only Fitchburg Cutoff; it was rebuilt with heavier rails to handle heavy freights headed to and from the new Somerville freight yard.[31] The abandoned station was damaged by fire on June 12, 1929, and again during a riot on July 4, 1938.[32][33] It is no longer extant.[34] In 1935, the city requested that the line be grade-separated as part of a Works Progress Administration-funded grade crossing elimination program.[35] However, the grade crossings were not eliminated; crashes and stalled freight trains continued to be a problem in the square.[36][37][38]

Davis station under construction in 1983

In the 1970s, local officials and citizen groups successfully petitioned the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to create a Red Line subway stop in Somerville at Davis Square. Freight service over the Fitchburg Cutoff through Davis Square, which had been reduced in the mid-1970s, ended entirely in April 1980.[31] Davis station opened on December 8, 1984, spurring major development and revitalization of the area.[39][4]

Davis and Porter were the first MBTA subway stations made accessible during initial construction, rather than by renovation.[40][41] In June 1993, Margaret McCarthy, a blind woman, fell off the platform and was killed by electrocution by the third rail. McCarthy was an advocate for adding tactile warning strips to the edges of station platforms; her death prompted the MBTA to finally install warning strips at all subway stations.[42]

A $6.6 million design contract was awarded in April 2020 for accessibility improvements at Davis and Broadway.[43][2] Initial plans called for two new surface elevators and two new platform elevators, and to add new walkways on the mezzanine level to connect the elevators.[43] Design reached 30% in 2021; by that time, the project scope had been changed to add replacement of two existing elevators, and to only add one new platform elevator.[44] Design work reached 75% completion in 2022.[45][2]