For our first review on the wild and wacky Norristown High Speed Line (I’m shocked it’s taken this long to do one), let’s take a look at the newly-renovated Stadium Station! Opened on January 13th (four days ago), the station still has some construction going on, but it’s complete enough that I feel I can review it fairly. Let’s see if SEPTA did a good job with the renovation.

Yeah, this is one of the best stations on the NHSL now, especially when compared to the photos I’ve seen of the old stop. We now have beautiful new shelters, benches, wastebaskets, fences, and signage – the old stop seemed very, very barebones compared to this. The platform can handle two cars, which is something that I can’t believe isn’t always the case. And most importantly: it’s accessible! The NHSL only had four (four!) accessible stations out of its 22 in total, so raising that number to five is at least a step in the right direction.

Parts of the station are still under construction, particularly the entrances. The area around the station has been made a lot friendlier to pedestrians since the station’s old incarnation, but they’re still working on paving over the gravel bits around the entrances. Also, the ramp on the inbound side is still under construction at time of writing, so I guess the station isn’t fully accessible yet. Still…not enough of an excuse for not marking Stadium as accessible on the platform map. OR having the southern terminus of the Broad Street Line be labelled as AT&T?!?? Come on, SEPTA, this is a brand new station!

Station: Stadium (NHSL)

Ridership: Checking 2017 data (since the station was under construction from 2018 until now), this one is definitely in the lower echelon of NHSL stations. It got 209 total passengers per day, with 123 alightings and just 86 boardings (perhaps because at the time, Villanova Station was a more pleasant place to wait, even if one lived slightly closer to Stadium; when getting off the train, it didn’t matter, hence the higher number of alightings). Hopefully the renovations will increase ridership!

Pros: The station really is well-done. The shelters are substantial with plenty of seating, and the new platforms are much better than the ones from before. And it’s accessible now (at least once they finish construction)! The NHSL has such a low percentage of accessible stations that any new one feels like a HUGE deal.

Cons: It would be nice to see an LED screen showing scheduled departures like at Gulph Mills, especially when the NHSL is as infrequent as it is. The outdated map is annoying, of course. Stadium’s biggest flaw, though, is how darn close it is to the next stop, Villanova. They’re 0.3 miles apart. 0.3 miles?! That’s, like, bus stop length!

Nearby and Noteworthy: Some of the Villanova buildings that happen to be closer to Stadium than to Villanova are the theatre and, of course, the stadium.

Final Verdict: 7/10
I really do think that this is the one of the best stations on the Norristown High Speed Line. But why, oh why did this have to be the one that got renovated? If they had spruced up Villanova instead, then they could have potentially cut this station entirely! After all…0.3 miles is sooooooo close. But alas: Stadium is still a great station, it just feels like it doesn’t really need to exist.

Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
In unimportant news: I turned 20 today. Wowiewowowow! In important news: tomorrow is the blog’s seventh anniversary, and with it will come the longest bus ride in America video! It’s gonna be great (hopefully you agree)!