On Monday, the Healey-Driscoll administration and officials from the MBTA announced a commitment to build a new, fully accessible Newtonville Station on the Framingham-Worcester line.
The $50 million project will replace the existing Newtonville station – a single platform that's accessible only from two long staircases – with a new, fully accessible station that will include level-boarding platforms for both tracks, elevators, and a bridge to carry passengers over the tracks to a new entry plaza on Washington Street.
New station will deliver accessibility and operational improvements
Currently, Newton's MBTA stations at Auburndale (pictured below), West Newton, and Newtonville feature a single low-level boarding platform crowded between the tracks and the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Those low-level platforms require passengers to climb stairs to board or disembark from trains, which increases boarding times and delays trains.
The single-platform layout also causes other inconveniences: because passengers only have access to one track, rush-hour trains that are traveling in the opposite, off-peak direction simply don't stop in the City of Newton.
However, under the MBTA's current plans, the new station's platforms would be considerably shorter than the current platforms, which could add additional complexity to future rail operations.
To reduce construction costs, the current Newtonville station plans call for 400-foot-long platforms, which is roughly half the length of the existing platform, and only long enough to provide access to four commuter rail cars at a time.
Current Worcester line trains can be up to 7 cars long to accommodate rush-hour crowds.
State investment rewards Newton's transit-oriented housing plans
The state's commitment to fund a new station in Newtonville also follows the City of Newton's adoption of new "village center" zoning districts, which legalize new multi-family housing projects up to 75 feet tall near MBTA stations.
Newton adopted the new zoning rules in 2023 to comply with the MBTA Communities law.
Newtonville's station "is surrounded by a number of new housing developments," noted Governor Maura Healey during a Monday press conference in Newton. "It is a great example of what works. We're going to have hundreds more folks living right next to a T station who are going to be able, to literally not get in their cars but hop on a commuter rail (train)."
Newton's other stations still waiting for funding
Until recently, the MBTA had been proceeding with plans to upgrade all three Newton stations in a single project.
But that higher-cost plan struggled to compete among the T's many priorities for limited construction funding.
The T has over $24 billion worth of outstanding "state of good repair" needs, but the agency typically only gets enough funding to finance $1.5 to $2 billion in construction projects each year.
In a public meeting on April 10th, the T announced that because of increasing costs and a lack of funding, the agency would prioritize a lower-cost Newtonville station replacement first, then proceed with the other two stations later.
In the MBTA's most recent capital budget, adopted in June, did not include funding for the Newtonville station.
The budget document acknowledged that the regional rail system still has "many inaccessible stations including Newtonville, West Newton, and Auburndale that are not funded with available resources, and which will require significant additional funding to design and construct to achieve full accessibility."
New financing plan will leverage MBTA debt, Fair Share revenue
MBTA spokesperson Maya Bingaman told StreetsblogMASS that "the Newtonville Station project will be supported through a combination of MBTA funding, including bonds, as well as state and federal assistance."
Bingaman also noted that the Healey administration had recently authorized a $600 million transfer to the MBTA from the state's Commonwealth Transportation Fund to help pay for more state-of-good-repair projects.
The project also received a $7 million earmark from Newton congressperson Rep. Jake Auchincloss in the 2023 federal budget.
MBTA officials plan to put the Newtonville station replacement project out to bid sometime next year, and expect that the project will take at least two years to complete.
