A primer for station design - rail transit stations

Railway Age, March, 1993 by Stanley Allan

Stations cannot be isolated design elements of a rail transit system. The chairman of Harry Weese Associates describes the many elements that go into a successful station design.

Let us imagine we're starting from scratch to design stations for a new rail transit system. How do we approach the tasks? Who do we talk with for help? What are the precedents? These questions and many, many more have to be answered in order to make appropriate design decisions.

Ridership expectations, origin and destination points, public hearings, environmental assessments, the effects of geology, terrain and climate, bus feeders, K&R, parking links, funding availability -- these are some of the major ingredients for a design program to locate the line sections and stations.

In the last ten years, over 30 new systems have gone through the design process, each responding to indigenous economic, social, and cultural characteristics. Since the end of the 19th Century, more than 100 systems have been started, and the number is continually expanding.

The steady growth of start-ups has been accompanied by a broad cross-fertilization of ideas and experiences at all levels of interest throughout the transit industry. The cumulative successes and failures are shared by all to improve basic designs as well as operating procedures. This process of evaluation serves as a guide for expanding systems as well as for new start-ups.

Cities that are currently at various stages of start-up include Minneapolis/st. Paul; Alexandria, Egypt; Toronto; Chicago (Circulator); Kansas City; Taegu, Korea; Raleigh-Durham; Detroit; Kaosiung, Taiwan; Spokane; Bangkok; Istanbul; and Ankara. Toronto's Let's Move program is poised at the environmental assessment stage with plans to add about 35 new stations utilizing a mix of heavy rail, light rail, and fully automated vehicles.

The best way to comprehend the wealth of existing information can only be realized by visiting a good number of systems. Such a serious study will yield an understanding of the state-of-the-art. From this survey one can extract and refine a series of major and minor design elements that are appealing and worthy of further study to determine their applicability, including train technology. Light rail vehicles relate well to smaller cities and towns, while heavy rail technology relates to large metropolitan centers.

* Variety vs. standardization. Generally, station design direction falls into two categories. The first includes stations that have strong individual architectural identities, with each one unlike the others in the system. The second includes stations that reflect a high degree of standardization.

The stations at Montreal, San Francisco (BART), Atlanta, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Stockholm, to name a few, are examples of considerable design variations. Systems expressing a high degree of similarities are found in Washington, D.C., Miami, Toronto, Mexico City, Milan, Tokyo, and London.

Some systems that start out with wide variety, sometimes even flamboyant station designs, invariably are simplified in the next generation of stations. The driving forces behind this change are lower capital costs, reduced maintenance costs, improved circulation, and access.

* Continuity and variability. Regardless of the direction selectedvariety or standardization -- there are inevitably a large number of important elements of continuity common to all stations. They provide functional, operational, safety, security, and accessibility requirements such as:

- Length and width of platforms.

- Platform edge details.

- Furniture.

- Waste receptacles.

- Lighting levels and fixtures.

- Advertising layouts.

- Directional and informational graphics and signage.

- Hardware.

- Acoustical treatment.

- Speaker systems.

- Elevators/stairs/escalators.

- Transparent elevator shafts.

- Emergency telephones.

- Non-slip paving.

- Kiosks.

- Smoke exhaust systems.

- Fare collection devices.

- Emergency exiting.

- Repetitive building materials.

Along with the elements of continuity are the major elements of variability. They are mainly concentrated at the surface, i.e., whether the side or center platforms are aerial, on-grade, or belowgrade; the amount of weather protection; the number of entrances; the number of parking, bus, and K&R spaces; landscaping; formal urban settings; and air rights or associated joint development. All of these are site specific whether located on private or public sector property.

* Structural configuration. The structural configuration of below-grade trainrooms falls into two general classifications:

- Column-free clear span trainrooms.

- Column supports and/or transverse beams.

The trend, world-wide, shows a significant increase in the number of systems using column free clear span trainrooms, with high bay spacious volumes. Examples of these are found in stations in Taipei, Vienna, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Toronto, Paris, Boston, Seattle (bus stations), and Mexico City.

More and more often, one finds in the spacious trainrooms serious works of art integrated into the structural/architectural fabric. This idea is catching on in the United States where the architect/engineer/artist team works together from the outset. This practice repeats a process in the design of the early stations in cities such as New York, London, Budapest, Paris, and Barcelona, where the labor intensive craft arts were, in beaux-arts fashion, naturally integrated into the form and substance of the structural/architectural design.