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Davis station (MBTA)

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Davis station is an underground Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Red Line rapid transit station located at Davis Square in Somerville, Massachusetts. The accessible station has a single island platform for the Red Line, as well as a dedicated busway on the surface. It opened in 1984 as part of the Red Line Northwest Extension project.

Davis
A southbound train entering Davis station in September 2024
General information
LocationCollege Avenue and Elm Street
Somerville, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°23′49″N 71°07′21″W / 42.3969°N 71.1225°W / 42.3969; -71.1225
Line(s)Red Line Northwest Extension
Platforms1 island platform
Tracks2
ConnectionsBus transport MBTA bus: 87, 88, 89, 90, 94, 96
Construction
Structure typeUnderground
Bicycle facilities165 spaces in "Pedal and Park" bicycle cage
AccessibleYes
History
Opened1870 (former station)
December 8, 1984 (MBTA)
ClosedApril 24, 1927 (former station)
Previous namesWest Somerville
Passengers
FY201911,442 (weekday average boardings)[1]
Services
Preceding station MBTA Following station
Alewife
Terminus
 Red Line Porter
toward Ashmont or Braintree
Location
Map

Station design

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The east headhouse and busway

The station has a single underground island platform, oriented approximately east-west under Davis Square. It has two brutalist concrete headhouses – at College Avenue on the east side of the square, and at Holland Street on the west side. A fare mezzanine running the length of the station connects the two headhouses and the platform. A skylight in the plaza provides natural light to the mezzanine. The station is accessible, with elevators connecting the mezzanine to the platform and the College Avenue headhouse.[2]

An off-street busway served by six MBTA bus routes – 87, 88, 89, 90, 94, and 96 – is located next to the east headhouse. Inbound buses on routes that do not terminate at Davis do not use the busway; they instead stop on surface streets near the station entrances.[3] A "Pedal and Park" bicycle cage is located east of the east headhouse.

History

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Railroad station

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The first transit service to what would become Davis Square[a] 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]

Red Line station

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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 and was nearly complete by November 2023.[45][2][46]

Arts on the Line

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Sculpture with a D seen in 2018

As a part of the Red Line Northwest Extension, Davis was included as one of the stations involved in the Arts on the Line program. Arts on the Line was devised to bring art into the MBTA's subway stations in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was the first program of its kind in the United States and became the model for similar drives for art across the country.[47]

Four of the original twenty artworks are located at Davis station.[48] These works are:

  • Ten Figures by James Tyler – Life-size people created out of cement, placed in areas around Davis Square
  • Children's Tile Mural by Jack Gregory and Joan Wye – Many tiles created by children placed on the brick wall of the station mezzanine. In 2009, a group of local artists attempted to find as many of the tile-makers as possible. The schoolchildren are now 35–45 years old.[49]
  • Poetry by various poets – Lines of poems are embedded into bricks on the station platform floor
  • Sculpture with a D by Sam Gilliam – A large scale, brightly colored, abstract work[50]

Nine panels of community art were added on the platform level in May 2008.[51]

References

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  1. ^ "A Guide to Ridership Data". MassDOT/MBTA Office of Performance Management and Innovation. June 22, 2020. p. 6.
  2. ^ a b c Normand, Eitan (March 2022). "Davis Station Accessibility Improvements: Recorded Project Overview – 30% Design" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
  3. ^ "2023–24 System Map". Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. December 17, 2023.
  4. ^ a b "A history of innovation -- The story of Davis Square". Boston Globe. November 18, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
  5. ^ "This week in Cambridge fifty years ago". Cambridge Chronicle. July 18, 1908. p. 11.
  6. ^ Elliot, Charles Darwin (1894). Somerville's History. p. 40 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ^ a b c d Humphrey, Thomas J. (August 2020). "Origin and Development of the Fixed-Route Local Bus Transportation Network in the Cities and Towns of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority District as of December 31, 1973: Revised Edition" (PDF). NETransit. p. 205.
  8. ^ a b "Plate K". Atlas of the city of Somerville, Massachusetts : from actual surveys and official records. G.M. Hopkins & Co. 1874. pp. 44–45 – via Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.
  9. ^ Inventory of the West End Street Railway Company. West End Street Railway Company. 1897. p. 271.
  10. ^ a b c d Karr, Ronald Dale (2017). The Rail Lines of Southern New England (2 ed.). Branch Line Press. ISBN 9780942147124.
  11. ^ "Boston and Lowell Railroad". American Railroad Journal. Vol. 27, no. 5. February 4, 1871. p. 122 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ "Boston and Maine Railroad". Interstate Commerce Commission Reports: Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States. Vol. 30: Valuation Reports. Interstate Commerce Commission. 1931. p. 780 – via Google Books.
  13. ^ The Invention of the Track Circuit. American Railway Association. 1922. pp. 18–21 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ^ Morrison, Donald F. (Fall–Winter 2010). "William Robinson, Railroad Signal Innovator". Railroad History (203). Railway & Locomotive Historical Society: 51–55. JSTOR 43525154.
  15. ^ Humphrey, Thomas J.; Clark, Norton D. (1986). Boston's Commuter Rail: Second Section. Boston Street Railway Association. p. 12. ISBN 9780938315025.
  16. ^ "Auction Sales". Boston Globe. May 20, 1883. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ "Auction Sales". Boston Globe. June 18, 1884. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ "Records Reduced". Boston Globe. September 27, 1885. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ Gordon, Edward (Fall 2006). "College Avenue, Gateway to West Somerville – From Davis Square to the Medford Line" (PDF). Chapter of Victoria Society of America. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 13, 2013.
  20. ^ "To Abolish Grade Crossings". Boston Globe. December 27, 1903. p. 35 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ "Two Somerville Grade Crossing Improvements Nearly Complete". Boston Globe. December 16, 1912. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Somerville". Boston Globe. October 22, 1914. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ "Somerville". Boston Globe. February 1, 1915. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ "Saved From Death as Train is Flagged". Boston Globe. October 21, 1920. p. 16 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ "Rob Davis-Sq, B. & M. Station Safe of $285". Boston Globe. March 31, 1918. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ^ Local Train Service. Boston and Maine Railroad. September 30, 1917. pp. 33–34 – via Wikimedia Commons.
  27. ^ "Somerville". Boston Globe. December 19, 1924. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ^ "Two Railroad Lines Being Built by B. & M. for Total of Two Miles". Boston Globe. October 28, 1926. p. 36 – via Newspapers.com.  
  29. ^ "Train Diversion Starts April 24th". Boston Globe. April 16, 1927. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.  
  30. ^ "Protest Giving Up 3 Stations". Boston Globe. November 10, 1926. p. 14 – via Newspapers.com.
  31. ^ a b Roderick, John Alan (October 17, 2015). "Determination of Historic Significance For Historic Resource Projects Funded through the Community Preservation Act". Preservation. Rehabilitation, Restoration and Improvements to the Somerville Community Path (PDF). City of Somerville, Massachusetts. pp. 1, 2.
  32. ^ "Somerville Crowd Battles Firemen". Boston Globe. July 5, 1938. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.  
  33. ^ "Somerville". Boston Globe. June 13, 1929. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. ^ Roy, John H. Jr. (2007). A Field Guide to Southern New England Railroad Depots and Freight Houses. Branch Line Press. p. 115. ISBN 9780942147087.
  35. ^ "Somerville". Boston Globe. June 11, 1935. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  36. ^ "Train Breaks Down, Auto Traffic Stalled". Boston Globe. December 23, 1946. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  37. ^ "Disabled Freight Delays Traffic on Massachusetts Av". Boston Globe. January 28, 1942. p. 23 – via Newspapers.com.
  38. ^ "Somerville Car Goes Through RR. Gates". Boston Globe. August 23, 1937. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  39. ^ Curtatone, Joe; Gewirtz, Rebekah (June 7, 2013). "Column: Davis Square design in Somerville will be community-driven". Wicked Local Somerville. Archived from the original on December 13, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2013.
  40. ^ Operations Directorate Planning Division (November 1990). "Ridership and Service Statistics" (3 ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. pp. 1–4 – via Internet Archive.
  41. ^ Tran Systems and Planners Collaborative (August 24, 2007). "Evaluation of MBTA Paratransit and Accessible Fixed Route Transit Services: Final Report" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
  42. ^ Durso, Holly Bellocchio (June 2011). Subway Spaces as Public Places: Politics and Perceptions of Boston's T (MCP). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. pp. 37–38. hdl:1721.1/66801.
  43. ^ a b Schwarz, John (April 13, 2020). "MBTA Contract Nos. A90PS02, A90PS04, & A90PS05: Architectural and Engineering Services for Station and Accessibility Improvements" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
  44. ^ "System-Wide Accessibility Initiatives—December 2021" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Department of System-Wide Accessibility. December 2021. p. 10.
  45. ^ "System-Wide Accessibility Initiatives—December 2022" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Department of System-Wide Accessibility. December 6, 2022. p. 9.
  46. ^ "System-Wide Accessibility Initiatives—November 2023" (PDF). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Department of System-Wide Accessibility. November 27, 2023. p. 10.
  47. ^ Red Line Northwest Extension Pamphlet page 5. The Davis Square Tiles Project. Accessed May 31, 2010
  48. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 24, 2007. Retrieved August 24, 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  49. ^ "249 Tiles". The Davis Square Tiles Project. Retrieved March 26, 2012.
  50. ^ Red Line Northwest Extension Pamphlet pages 10-11. The Davis Square Tiles Project. Accessed May 30, 2010
  51. ^ "MBTA, City of Somerville, Tufts University Officially Unveil Community Art at Davis Square Station" (Press release). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. May 6, 2008.
Notes
  1. ^ The junction of Elm Street, Highland Avenue, and Holland Street would not be designed as Davis Square until 1883.[4]
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