Doesn't this mean that MBTA cannot perform any platform (or Station) upgrades or modifications (such as fix a cumbling shelter) without making additional modifications for ADA compliance?
No, they can do repairs. ADA isn't so nihilist a law that it forces a situation where you'd either have to pony up or defer maintenance so long that accessibility gets
worse. The only thing those 3 appear to be scheduled for on the FY2012-2016 cap improvements document is lighting upgrades and "design" (unfunded) for Auburndale ADA. Whatever that means; I don't see any construction schedule attached to that line item.
They're going to have to step it up bigtime. They are in definite trouble with the law if they let 7 consecutive stations--a couple of them Top 10 in boardings among non-compliant CR stops--stay inaccessible much longer. Especially on a line with Worcester's ridership where the short-term service plan doubles the number of trains. This is a situation where broke-or-not-broke they're going to have to find some money and seek some grants. I think it'll be available because there's a lot of little junk like this they have to do with the inner Worcester Line to make it run better, but station ADA rebuilds and the second platforms on these 3 are not luxury items they can defer beyond the 5-year range due to debt service. This comes under the deferred maintenance umbrella the D'Alessandro Report reamed them for.
They have a viable excuse in Beacon Park for waiting this long. Until CSX relocates west the stations are under a wide freight clearance exemption from high platforms. This is why the stops on the outer half of the line, which all opened within +/- 2 years of 2000 a full decade after ADA was passed, were built with mini-highs instead of full-highs. Same exemption is in effect for all of the Lowell Line, Haverhill Line north of Wilmington and all Downeaster stops, Fitchburg Line Ayer and points west, Franklin Line between Walpole and Readville, the NEC between Mansfield and Attleboro, and Foxboro on the Framingham Secondary. Only full-highs allowed are at stations that have passing tracks or where passenger trains switch to the opposite track and stop at a single platform only. e.g. the highs at Anderson/Woburn, Lawrence, Worcester and Lowell terminals, and the designs for single-platform terminals Wachusett and Plaistow. Those Worcester Line mini-highs have spring-loaded platform edges that the oversize freights can push aside, and that's not possible to do with a full-high that's 8 cars long and/or on a curve. If they wait until Beacon Park's gone that exemption gets lifted and they can do full-highs on all 7 of those non-ADA stops and raise West Natick (Framingham conceivably as well if CSX built a passing track on all that space behind the station). The once-daily produce train to Everett Terminal that'll remain after Beacon Park closes doesn't use any wide-load cars.
West Newton and Newtonville are the most unpleasant possible places to wait for a train. I don't know how much they can be improved given the roaring Turnpike next to them.
Tallish wall. Maybe not the size/strength of a typical highway sound barrier, but a whole lot better than the rotting wood Home Depot fence currently at Newtonville. Can be done without too much expense. It just needs to be tall enough and solid enough to block the visual/aural terror of cars zooming past and all the dirt and debris that gets chucked up by the Pike traffic which the current wood fence doesn't do nearly enough to block.
Plus less disgusting shelters.
This is like waiting for a train inside of a chicken coop. If those aren't the 3 worst stations on the entire system, they're most definitely in the Bottom 5.
