A primer for station design - rail transit stations

Railway Age, March, 1993 by Stanley Allan

Except for vehicles, trackwork, signals, and power distribution, there is a significant difference in capital costs between light and heavy rail systems. The mainly at-grade light rail installations-including San Diego, the Long Beach/Los Angles Blue Line, Santa Clara, Portland, Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton-were constructed at a fraction of the cost of the mainly below-grade heavy rail systems of BART, the Los Angeles Red Line, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Baltimore, Miami, or Montreal. The contrasting levels of service, peak hour demand, headways, and capital costs relate to the appropriateness of adequately serving the individual program of each particular city. Light rail system stations, generally located at-grade, have relatively short platforms, either low- or high- level, with minimum weather protection, seldom needing stairs or escalators (ramps usually suffice), and only small lifts for the handicapped.

* Life expectancy of a century or more. Rapid rail systems are public work projects with a life expectancy of at least 100 years for the fixed facilities and 30 years, plus or minus, for the rolling stock. A new system must be planned, designed, and built as an investment for long-term functional benefits, without excessive maintenance upkeep costs.

Value engineering analyses should focus on alignment and profile alternatives in combination with station alternatives, i.e., side or center platform. Whether aerial, at-grade or below-grade, center platforms are functionally superior over side platforms. Shallow cut and cover stations have lower construction costs than deep ones. However, surface disruption to street traffic, business activity, and residential tranquility can force one into tunneled line sections with cut and cover stations. These decisions are made by a mix of constructability/cost analyses, alternative alignment/profile studies, station entrance studies, and indepth public relations efforts.

Most modern systems have gone through five to ten years of planning, design, construction, and testing before start-up of revenue operations. Early planning ideas, environmental assessments, public hearings, funding formula negotiations, selecting the technology of the vehicles, legislation/referenda/citizen approvals -- all these are time consuming considerations and part of the start-up process.

* Users are the client. In summary, all of these considerations when resolved give form, substance, and image to stations as well as to the entire system. The design goals should strive not merely for minimum requirements but maximum possibilities. Stations do not stand alone as isolated design elements. They are intertwined with trains as the most important features in the fabric of the entire system. Most significantly, one wants to design stations for the satisfaction and pleasure of users. Designed for people, stations become a dignified place-a place to return to over and over again for the long term; a place for reliable, safe, enjoyable rail transportation.