Beverly Depot

BEVERLY DEPOT
Historic Beverly Depot and modern asphalt platforms
Location 12 Park Street
Beverly, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°32′51″N 70°53′07″W / 42.54760°N 70.88535°W / 42.54760; -70.88535Coordinates: 42°32′51″N 70°53′07″W / 42.54760°N 70.88535°W / 42.54760; -70.88535
Owned by MBTA
Line(s)
  Newburyport/Rockport Line
Platforms 2 side platforms
Tracks 2
Connections MBTA Bus: 451
CATA: Beverly Shuttle
Construction
Parking 500 spaces ($5.00 fee)
Accessible spaces available
Bicycle facilities "Pedal and Park" bicycle cage
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Fare zone 4
History
Opened 1839
Rebuilt 1897
Traffic
Passengers (2013) 2,058 (weekday inbound average)[1]
Services
Preceding station   MBTA   Following station
Newburyport/Rockport Line
toward Rockport
toward Newburyport
Beverly Depot
NRHP reference # 09000087
Added to NRHP October 11, 1979

Beverly Depot is an MBTA Commuter Rail station in Beverly, Massachusetts. Located in Downtown Beverly, it serves the Newburyport/Rockport Line. It is the junction of the line's two branches to Newburyport and Rockport and is served by every train on both branches, for as many as 30 departures to Boston on weekdays. Except for Anderson RTC, it is the most frequent inbound service from any MBTA Commuter Rail station. By a 2013 count, Beverly Depot had the third highest inbound ridership on the system (behind only Providence and Salem) with 2,058 inbound riders on a typical weekday.[1]

The Eastern Railroad was extended through Beverly to Ipswich in 1839. The 1839 station was replaced in 1855; that station was in turn replaced by one designed by Bradford Lee Gilbert in 1897. The station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and is a contributing property of the Beverly Depot-Odell Park Historic District which was added in 2014. A 500-space parking garage at Beverly opened on August 2, 2014.

History

The 1855-built depot around 1890
Beverly Depot on a 1905 postcard

The current Beverly Depot is this third station to serve Beverly. The first station, opened in 1839, was located next to the Essex Bridge; its 1855 replacement was a larger wooden building with a train shed at the modern site. The train shed was torn down for the 1897 construction of the Bradford Lee Gilbert station that still stands. A copy was built ten years later at Andover.[2]

The ticket office closed in 1965 with passenger traffic in free fall as the newly formed MBTA began to subsidize service to Beverly. The station building was sold soon after; it partially burned on February 15, 1971, but was renovated and reopened as a restaurant by that December.[2]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.[3] The modern station facilities, located adjacent to the depot building, consist of two platforms serving the line's two tracks. Short high-level platforms are located on the outbound end of the longer low-level platforms, making the station fully handicapped accessible.

On November 16, 1984, the Beverly Bridge, which carried the line between Salem and Beverly, was destroyed by a fire. For 13 months, Beverly was the connection point between a Salem-Beverly-Ipswich shuttle bus and a Beverly-Rockport shuttle train. Regular service over a new bridge was restored on December 1, 1985.[4]

Garage

The damaged pedestrian bridge in May 2017

On September 15, 2012, the MBTA approved funding for a new parking garage to be built near the station. The three-story, 500-space garage more than quintiples former parking capacity and include facilities such as electric car charging stations and roof-mounted solar panels as well as a covered walkway leading over Pleasant Street to the station platforms.[5] The $34.1 million project began construction in November 2012.

The garage was originally planned to open in December 2013, but the opening was delayed several times due to construction difficulties. A retaining wall required additional reinforcement, unusually cold winter temperatures prevented contractors from pouring concrete, and contaminated soil had to be unexpectedly brought to out-of-state disposal locations when in-state facilities closed.[6][7] The city of Beverly contributed $500,000 in city funds to cover additional construction costs from these delays.

The garage ultimately opened on August 2, 2014.[8] After four weeks, only 100 of the 500 spaces were being used on a daily basis.[9] By September 2015, usage averaged 260 cars on weekdays.[10]

On April 3, 2017, the pedestrian bridge linking the garage and station was heavily damaged by an oversized load on a flatbed truck.[11]

Bus connections

No MBTA Bus routes directly serve the station. However, the 451 North Beverly - Salem Depot via Cabot Street or Tozer Road route runs on Cabot Street several blocks to the east.

Additionally, the Cape Ann Transportation Authority runs a Beverly Shuttle route, which is branded as part of its Yellow Line service.[12]

References

  1. 1 2 "Ridership and Service Statistics" (PDF) (14th ed.). Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 2014.
  2. 1 2 Roy, John H. Jr. (2007). A Field Guide to Southern New England Railroad Depots and Freight Houses. Branch Line Press. p. 133. ISBN 9780942147087.
  3. ↑ "MACRIS inventory record for Bevery Depot". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-01-17.
  4. ↑ Belcher, Jonathan (31 August 2012). "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). NETransit. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
  5. ↑ Leighton, Paul (15 September 2012). "MBTA approves $25 million for garage". Salem News. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
  6. ↑ Leighton, Paul (23 January 2014). "Parking garage behind schedule". Salem News. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
  7. ↑ Rosenberg, Steven A. (30 January 2014). "Beverly T garage to open late, but Salem project on track". Boston Globe. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  8. ↑ Jessen, Klark (1 August 2014). "Governor Patrick Celebrates Beverly Commuter Rail Parking". MassDOT Blog. Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  9. ↑ Levines, George (31 August 2014). "Beverly garage slow to catch on". Salem News. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  10. ↑ Leighton, Paul (17 September 2015). "Half empty or half full?: Fewer cars than expected using Salem, Beverly MBTA garages". Salem News. Archived from the original on 1 October 2015.
  11. ↑ Anderson, Buck (April 3, 2017). "Pleasant Street blocked after oversize load jams MBTA overpass". Salem News. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  12. ↑ "City of BEVERLY Shuttle". Cape Ann Transportation Authority.
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