The MBTA has plans to eventually rebuild all three of Newton’s commuter rail stations, allowing for service to grow significantly beyond the five inbound and five outbound trains that stop in the city each weekday. Photo By Chris Lisinski | State House News Service
State and city officials gathered Monday to celebrate a new commitment by the MBTA to rebuild and modernize the Newtonville commuter rail station to make it larger and more accessible.
The station rebuild, which currently doesn’t have a construction start date, is one of three existing stations that only get a handful of trains per day and function as a bottleneck on the entire line, which serves MetroWest and Worcester.
Right now, the stations are little better than asphalt strips sandwiched between the Massachusetts Turnpike and the train tracks. The new station will have high-level platforms and elevators connecting it to street level.
“This is going to allow trains to come more frequently, more efficiently, without having to switch tracks,” Gov. Maura Healey said. “It’s going to have better lighting, better security, better signage. It’s going to have elevators. It’s going to be a station that the community and the commonwealth deserve.”
Healey said officials lined up $50 million in combined state, MBTA and federal funding for the project, which is still several years away from becoming reality.
That includes $7 million in federal Community Project Funding secured by Newton Congressman Jake Auchincloss.
Only about 1,000 people use Newton’s commuter rail stations every day headed inbound, and another 1,000 board going outbound, according to MBTA General Manager Phil Eng, but none of the three stops – Newtonville, Auburndale and West Newton – are fully accessible.
“That’s not acceptable,” Eng said.
The problems go beyond station access, too. Because Newtonville has only a single platform, trains cannot cross through heading both westbound and eastbound at the same time, which Eng said causes “delays across the whole corridor.”
“Currently, there are five inbound and five outbound trains per day. [Trains] skip the station the rest of the day, in part because it lacks the accessibility and design to be able to allow this corridor to serve it in a better manner,” he said.
More frequent train service will help the new Newtonville station – and, eventually, its peers in the city Newton – drive the same big ridership growth the commuter rail system has seen on other lines, Eng said after the press conference.
Officials also noted the new station would also bring much better transit to two large multifamily complexes next door – Mark Development’s Trio and Dinosaur Capital Partners and Oaktree Development’s 28 Austin. In addition, Boylston Properties recently permitted a 295-apartment complex nearby under the state Chapter 40B affordable housing law. The area around Newtonville was also included in the city’s MBTA Communities zoning district.
It’s still not clear when the work will begin. Eng said he expects the MBTA will look to strike a contract for the project in 2025 and estimated it would involve roughly two years of build time, though he stressed officials are still meeting with industry representatives “to gauge different ways to deliver this project.”
Banker & Tradesman staff writer James Sanna contributed to this report.
