T Station Design

A few favorites:

Green St. is my favorite. Getting from the street to platform is stupidly simple, and there are no real bottlenecks to speak of. In spring and summer, the plants on the hillside droop-down over the tracks, and give it a garden-like feeling.

Stony Brook sends you on a gentle U-turn because the architects wanted to give you a fantastic view down the tracks to the Boston skyline beyond.

Jackson Square feels like something out of dystopian sci-fi. Absolutely miserable in a I-can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it kind of way.

Courthouse is the most visually-appealing. I was told once by a CSR that there used to be even more lights on in the ceiling, but they turned them off. Always kinda feel underwhelmed when a bus slooooowly creeps up to the platform at 3mph.

Bowdoin has a cozy vibe of a station out in some remote NYC neighborhood.

vanshnookenraggen said:
I've always been a fan of Symphony because it's so desolate.
Click to expand...

You know, I've always felt this way too. I can't explain it.

495528449_ca901908b7_z.jpg
 
I love the creepy vibe I get in Bowdoin and Symphony; it's spine tingling. :) Makes me think I'll see a radioactive mutant rat scurry by, or mutant mole peoples creeping in the shadows.
 
Some of my favorites:

Kenmore: I love coming in from one of the surface lines to see another train coming in from the other portal. The complexity of the flying junctions, the four track boarding area, and the loop is really cool for a train geek to observe. And I love the crowds before a baseball game.

Park St. Upper: amazing amount of bustle, so many trains entering and leaving, so many destinations, so many people. And see Kenmore entry regarding tracking.

North Station: stepping off a trolley and walking across to a waiting heavy rail train is pretty unique. This station, much like Park St. Gives the illusion that the 'T is something really big and comprehensive. I do miss the old North Station a bit, mainly because it was three levels. How many systems anywhere have a three level station?

Charles/MGH: the trains either cross a bridge with a spectacular view, or emerge from directly under buildings on Beacon Hill!

Shawmut: the station is really nothing special, but I like that it is smack dab in the middle of a residential street. This is very unusual for Boston, and lots of areas in the city that might otherwise look just like that neighborhood not only do not have a subway station across the street, but are more than a mile from one.

Forest Hills: well designed for passenger flow, does a great job handling the sudden influx of hundreds of bus riders all needing to get down to the platform.
 
Last edited:
Charles/MGH was a little more fun when you could actually look out onto the tiny little Beacon Hill alleys you crossed over. Unfortunately for riders (but fortunately for local residents), the reconstruction added sound-barrier walls that block the view.
 
I do miss the old North Station a bit, mainly because it was three levels. How many systems anywhere have a three level station?
Click to expand...

The Tokyo area has a bunch of stations whose complexity is hard for the mind to grasp, and the problem is not helped with maps since these stations are served by multiple operators, each of which puts out maps only showing its own concourses. Anyway, I'm sure there are more than a handful of three level stations, but a few big time 4+ level stations that spring to mind:

Shimbashi - three or four
Yokohama Station (my neck of the woods) - four
Shibuya - four or five
Tokyo Station - four or five
Shinjuku - head explodes (five or six?)

Random list of 3 level stations: Akihabara, Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinagawa, Shin-Yokohama, Kannai (fluke)
 
Last edited:
I haven't been to Japan, but the Chatelet-Les Halles complex in Paris is amazingly intricate and confusing.
 
Paris does have quite a few complexes connecting multiple lines, but I don't recall personally ever seeing one that was more than two levels, even though it might service 5 or 6 distinct tunnels. The Boston analog to that sort of configuration would be the DTX/Park Street/Summner concourse.
 
Ron Newman said:
This is not the Brutalism discussion, but the one Brutalist building that people seem to universally admire is the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank extension (most recently Borders Books, soon to be Walgreens megastore)
Click to expand...

I'd say that the reason this building does not induce the same gut-level hatred is its abundant use of glass. The dark/damp/dank feeling is greatly reduced. The same should be incorporated into transit stations to the maximum possible. The glass at Charles/MGH makes the station quite pleasant.
 
Semass said:
I'd say that the reason this building does not induce the same gut-level hatred is its abundant use of glass. The dark/damp/dank feeling is greatly reduced. The same should be incorporated into transit stations to the maximum possible. The glass at Charles/MGH makes the station quite pleasant.
Click to expand...

Perhaps from the outside -- the only reason its not hated inside -- they preserved the good old human scale stuff -- the stuff -- that the old Johnson of the international style hated (*1 and the new Johnson of the 'New Johnson" style (*2 -- parodied the stuff that he's previously eschewed

I thin that from the standpoint of stations that work the best is South Station

you integrate in one complex: Amtrak, Commuter Rail, Silver Line, Red Line, shops, food all without going outside of at least a roof
and if you step into the rain for a few steps -- you can get to intercity buses, some parking
and then step outside and get one of the best views in downtown Boston and can catch a taxi have a hotel room, late night food
if the U.S.P.S. ever leaves there could even be a water taxi terminal

And yes there is industrial / brutalism (e.g. exterior walls inside) -- but it is combined artfully with the "old-world Fin de Siècle stuff of coffered ceilings eagle carving, clock, etc.

I think if you want real transit oriented development -- it should be an integrated South Station former U.S.P.S. mega-development -- a Pru on Steroids with more square feet under glass and more underground passages and perhaps even a Gerbil Tube or two -- LOL


*1 -- e.g. Boston Public Library addition
*2 -- e.g. 500 Boylston St. and more largeish -- International Place -- where he placed large copies of the elegant Victorian era lamp brackets taken from the original BPL
 
Last edited:
I think natural light should be allowed to filter in to stations wherever reasonable.

I have this [perhaps crazy] idea that at State Street, Orange Line southbound, across the tracks from the platform should be some moderately reflective material (mirrors may be too reflective) at a 45degree angle. This would place the reflective material under the westerly sidewalk of Washington St. Between the sidewalk and Irish Famine Memorial would be a 3 foot tall brick "wall" with glass running down the middle.

So what you get is light entering into the "wall" and lighting up the place. You could perhaps hang random little bits of mirror inside of the "wall" in a windchime fashion. This would jazz it up a bit. Or you could use colored glass or something.

I don't know, what do you guys I think?

Sounds like public art + free (well- not entirely, you have to build it...) lighting, to me.
 
The central plaza of Davis Square (called 'Statue Park' locally) was built with a large arched glass structure to act as a skylight to the T station below. The city and local residents eventually decided it was too instrusive to the plaza, and persuaded the T to replace it with the flat-panel skylight you see there today.
 
Ron Newman said:
The central plaza of Davis Square (called 'Statue Park' locally) was built with a large arched glass structure to act as a skylight to the T station below. The city and local residents eventually decided it was too instrusive to the plaza, and persuaded the T to replace it with the flat-panel skylight you see there today.
Click to expand...

I was unaware there was anything like that at Davis. I'm surprised I've never saw it, though I've only been there a few times. Where exactly is it? I don't see it on Google Maps.
 
It's now so unobtrusive that it's hard to point out in photographs. It looks like a long concrete bench and that's how many folks use it, as a place to sit or even lie down on. You can see it in this Street View:

http://g.co/maps/hwm3w

on the other side of the red brick walkway from Tedeschi's, to the left of the green trash containers.
 
Ron Newman said:
The central plaza of Davis Square (called 'Statue Park' locally) was built with a large arched glass structure to act as a skylight to the T station below. The city and local residents eventually decided it was too instrusive to the plaza, and persuaded the T to replace it with the flat-panel skylight you see there today.
Click to expand...

Ron -- there are some excellent stations with skylights on the Jubilee Line of the London Underground

However, I think we should see the use of the new lighting-quality optical fiber bundles

I had the idea one day of a small field of artificial sunflowers about 10 feet tall with the flower a Fresnel Lens solar collector and the stem a fiber bundle inside a flexible protective tube -- the sunflowers could wave in the wind. After penetrating into the station the fibers would be arrayed to shine light onto the ceiling of the station. As the winds blows, clouds come and go and the sun goes through its diurnal and annual path across the sky the ceiling would constantly be washed with varying light patterns. At night LED arrays could replace the sunflowers for light.
 
I also found using the Regional Rail system to backwards and badly marked....took my mom 30mins to find the Forge Park/495 Park and Ride...
 
MBTAddict said:
An interesting article on the branding of transit.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/03/how-design-can-help-build-transit-culture/8633/

I'd love to see the T get some consistency across the system - not necessarily in terms of design within the station, but for the headhouses. If I could, I think I would take the headhouse design from Park Street, Boylston, and the new-ish Arlington Street as the cues for the rest of the system.
Click to expand...

Very interesting article! I love the wood ceiling & the glue-lam beams used in that Vancouver station. I think wood gives a sense of comfort and warmth that you can't get with any other material.

Branding can definitely be a huge asset for a transit agency. For anyone that's been to NYC, you've probably seen the tourists taking pictures randomly of subway cars & signs (some of you may have even been guilty of this yourself). Could you imagine someone taking a picture of the orange line that wasn't "look how crappy this thing is".

I also like his point about branding the whole system vs. individual lines vs individual neighborhoods. I think it's important to have a solid whole system branding (obviously) but I really like the way that the T has historical picture of the area around each station.
 
MBTAddict said:
An interesting article on the branding of transit.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/03/how-design-can-help-build-transit-culture/8633/

I'd love to see the T get some consistency across the system - not necessarily in terms of design within the station, but for the headhouses. If I could, I think I would take the headhouse design from Park Street, Boylston, and the new-ish Arlington Street as the cues for the rest of the system.
Click to expand...

I wish the T would follow the MTAs lead and bring the stations back to near their as-built condition. If you look at any old pictures of the underground stations, they looked amazing with plain white tile. Not only does it look clean, but white tile is timeless, unlike the majority of the subsequent renovations they have undergone, as well as their new construction. Arlington and to a lesser extent Copley did this, while Kenmore did not. Kenmore, IMO, already looks dirty and dated, and its been less than a decade. A consistent (and timeless) headhouse design would also be great.

The problem is that branding doesn't matter much when the stations leak like a cave and are covered in grime and soot. What I really think the T could use would be "station managers", where one person is in charge of the ops of their respective station. They would be in charge of making sure the station is clean, reporting (and getting fixed) maintenance issues, making sure potential retail space is used, lobbying for reopening entrances, making sure CSAs are doing their job, etc. Similar to how the chain retail world works, where you have managers trying to outdo each other and lobbying corporate for upgrades, etc. It would have to be a position with a competitive culture, to encourage the managers to outdo each other. The employees could come from the existing CSA pool, they wouldn't have to be new hires. The T loves to blow a ton of money renovating a station, and then leave it to rot with barely any cleaning or maintenance. I just see tons of waste (potential / closed retail spaces, passageways/entrances that would be convenient for commuters but are not opened, employees not doing their jobs, dirt and filth, etc) that could be changed if there was someone who "owned" the station, vs the current system.
 
davem said:
I wish the T would follow the MTAs lead and bring the stations back to near their as-built condition. If you look at any old pictures of the underground stations, they looked amazing with plain white tile.
Click to expand...
Ditto to that, and I love the mosaic's down there. It would be nice to find our own variant to that.


davem said:
The problem is that branding doesn't matter much when the stations leak like a cave and are covered in grime and soot. What I really think the T could use would be "station managers", where one person is in charge of the ops of their respective station. They would be in charge of making sure the station is clean, reporting (and getting fixed) maintenance issues, making sure potential retail space is used, lobbying for reopening entrances, making sure CSAs are doing their job, etc. Similar to how the chain retail world works, where you have managers trying to outdo each other and lobbying corporate for upgrades, etc. It would have to be a position with a competitive culture, to encourage the managers to outdo each other. The employees could come from the existing CSA pool, they wouldn't have to be new hires. The T loves to blow a ton of money renovating a station, and then leave it to rot with barely any cleaning or maintenance. I just see tons of waste (potential / closed retail spaces, passageways/entrances that would be convenient for commuters but are not opened, employees not doing their jobs, dirt and filth, etc) that could be changed if there was someone who "owned" the station, vs the current system.
Click to expand...

This is a great idea, I don't know how feasible it is from a financial perspective. Maybe instead of managing one station each you have someone that manages the stations on the lines, or on each branch, and they run a crew dedicated to that line. Again, not sure of the feasibility of this, but I like the competition and the ownership aspect of it. Force people to have some pride in their work.

Also, on the closed entrances. I would kill to have the back of Hynes open so I don't have to walk so far to McGreevy's does anybody know the reason it's closed, status of disrepair, where it dumps into the lobby area? What would it take to get it back in service?
 
^ I think the air-rights developments for that pike parcel (Parcel 13? 15?) included a Hynes entrance on Boylston.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top