Wellesley Farms didn’t score particularly highly with me. Will the next station, Wellesley Hills, be an improvement? Let’s find out.
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| The station…from above. |
There are two ways to get into this station. The first one is a staircase from Cliff Road, and it does its job fine. The other entrance is via the station’s parking lot, which has 51 spaces, and once again, residents of Wellesley get a significant discount. There are some newspaper boxes, bike racks, and a payphone at the parking lot entrance.
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| Down on the platform. |
Well, the outbound platform is a sign, an ad, and a wastebasket. Nice. Crossing over via a weird boardwalk, we get to the inbound platform, which has everything on the outbound, plus…a bench! Okay, there’s also a station building that has a café in it, and that’s pretty awesome.
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| What have we here? |
Oho, what’s this? A bus stop? Well, I do usually talk about bus connections in my reviews, so let’s see what kind of complex infrastructure the MWRTA 8 has here. The Woodland-bound stop is fine, but the Natick-bound stop is…problematic. AS IN THERE ARE PARKING SPACES IN ITS WAY! They really couldn’t eliminate just one or two to allow a tiny minibus to pull in on its awful terrible deviation-filled ridiculous route???????? I hate the 8, and I hate this stop!
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| Choo choo! |
Station: Wellesley Hills
Ridership: This is the second-busiest Wellesley station, but it only beats Wellesley Farms by four people! Yes, this stop gets 562 inbound riders per weekday, compared to 558 at Wellesley Farms.
Pros: The building is nice, and I love that it has a café in it. The weird boardwalk makes it easy to cross over the tracks, and the station is well-integrated with the neighborhood around it.
Cons: This is a drab and pretty awful station. The outbound side gets nary a bench for people to wait on, so tough luck there, but it’s not like the inbound side is much better! I can imagine a ton of people huddling under the tiny shelter provided by the building during rainy morning rush periods. Of course, the station isn’t wheelchair accessible because of the low-level platform. Also, that bus stop…geez, that’s an awful bus stop.
Nearby and Noteworthy: There are some nice businesses along Washington Street. It’s nowhere near as awesome as the commercial center of Wellesley Square, but it’s something.
Final Verdict: 4/10
I’m not a fan of this one either. It doesn’t provide enough amenities considering the number of passengers it gets, and it just feels bleak. And of course, we have a strong contender for “worst bus stop ever,” from the good ol’ MWRTA!
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
i was wondering, how are you going to review Foxboro due to the fact it's special events only
You'll have to wait and see!
Miles…I enjoy ALL the reviews, especially Silver Hill. The bottom line with this station is incredible convenience. It's on Route 16. Because I am handicapped this station works for me because The Farms and Square Stations require a walkover to the lot if you travel outside the 3pm to 7pm hours when the Inbound and Outbound reverse to accomodate the crossover during rush hours. Still West Natick and Wellesley Hills have the Walkway between platforms and passengers must know the schedule of the Track 2 trains to avoid getting hit by an oncoming train when crossing over. Caffè Nero is awesome and it even has the history of the Depot prominently displayed inside. The lot is small definitely, but usually there is enough parking to accommodate us disabled people. While there is no raised platform there, you can hope that the next renovation could accommodate the ADA folks along this entire line so that the automatic doors can be used instead of having a conductor at each door. By the way, the MWRTA Route 8 has minimal service anyway, so who cares about the size of the stop?
My big problem with the station is just the lack of shelter and benches on the inbound platforms. I imagine it being a dismal scene on a rainy day. And though we can hope for a high-level platform renovation, the T has many such projects in its backlog, so who knows when it will actually be completed? At the moment, this station is absolutely a 4.
Thanks for the comment!
did you change the caption on the picture of the train, i swear i remember it saying something different last night
No.
i think I must have been looking at a different post, sorry about that, my bad!
I ride in from Worcester to South Station or Back Bay all the time. I'm sorry, but six stops for Wellesley and Newton is ridiculous. The obvious solution is to run more in-between trains between S Station and Framingham. Nobody from Worcester is traveling to Wellesley, and nobody from Wellesley is going to Worcester. It's a complete waste of time.
Hello! I recently visited Wellesley Hills and had some serious safety concerns regarding the track crossing. Did you consider this when reviewing the station?