Valley Road station is a

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

station in

Milton, Massachusetts Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Milton is an immediate southern suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Milton is located in the relatively hilly ...

. It serves the

MBTA The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network in ...

Mattapan Line The Mattapan Line (alternatively the Mattapan Trolley and historically the Ashmont–Mattapan High-Speed Line) is a partially grade separation, grade-separated light rail line which forms part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, ...

, a branch of the Red Line. The station is located off Eliot Street near Valley Road and consists of two

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...

s that serve the lines's two tracks. Valley Road is the only station on the line that is not accessible.

History

Valley Road opened on December 21, 1929, along with and as the second phase of the

. Like Capen Street (opened in 1930) and (1931), it had not previously been the site of a railroad station. In 1932, local politicians advocated for the construction of a footbridge across the

Neponset River The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. From there, the Neponset meanders generally northeast for about to its mouth at ...

to provide transit access to the Boston Consumptives Hospital from the station. The bridge was not built; until the Harvest River Bridge carrying the

Lower Neponset River Trail The Lower Neponset River Trail is a rail trail running along the Neponset River in the Dorchester section of Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusett ...

was built about west in 2016, there was no pedestrian crossing of the river between Mattapan Square and Central Avenue. The whole line closed from June 24, 2006, to December 22, 2007, for a complete renovation. 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. 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. The MBTA plans to convert the line to modern

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 platform An island platform (also center platform (American English) or centre platform (British English)) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway inte ...

s. Construction cost for Valley Road station was estimated as $20.8 million – twice that of other intermediate stations on the line – in 2023.

References

External links

MBTA - Valley Road

Eliot Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
Red Line (MBTA) stations Railway stations in Norfolk County, Massachusetts Railway stations in the United States opened in 1929 1929 establishments in Massachusetts Milton, Massachusetts {{Massachusetts-railstation-stub