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What happened to the sliding door
By roadman on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 3:47pm
on the end of the Garden-side entrance to North Station Orange/Green Line subway? It's been removed and the hole covered over with plywood.
If and when it is eventually replaced, I hope the T puts in a pair of normal swinging doors instead.
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Comments
It's back in service this
It's back in service this morning.
I was hoping they were replacing it with something that would let more than one person through at a time, but alas, no such luck.
Widen doors, on perhaps the busiest headhouse on the whole Green Line? Now that's just crazy talk!
When I came through NS about 8:35, the new swinging doors
were chocked wide open, allowing two people to pass through the opening at the same time. BIG improvement over the old sliding door, where half the opening was permanently blocked by the non-moveable portion of the sliding door.
Update - the sliding door has been replaced with swinging doors
They have removed one of the other sliding doors as well, so I suspect all of them will eventually be replaced with swinging doors.
This is good news, as the change effectively doubles the width of the subway entrance openings. Now if they'd just remove the silly bollards that only serve to get in the way of the throngs of pedestrians attempting to enter the station during rush hour.
Better Yet
Connect the station with the commuter rail entrance using at least a covered portico! That short space between - which should have been designed to stay undercover in the first place -gets nasty in the winter!
No disagreement here.
I mention the bollards simply because they are an obstruction to logical pedestrian travel paths.
Of course, had the office building that was supposed to go on the footprint of the old Garden actually been built ten years ago, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. The plans for that building did include a direct covered connection between the underground concourse and the Garden.
Too bad T management opted to accept a fair, yet poorly constructed, enlarged waiting room instead. Although the extra space they created would have been much more practical if it wasn't cluttered up with ATM machines and a newsstand and a bar.
And opening the Garden gates for events sooner than 6 pm would go a long way to making life easier for commuters as well.
bollards
I think the bollards are a public safety/security feature designed to prevent vehicles, particularly one with an improvised explosive device from driving in.
Don't go nuts, everyone. I'm just stating that is the probable purpose based on my experience. I'm not saying that they are good/bad/effecitve/worth it.
Yes, the bollards are likely there to prevent vehicles
from smashing into the entrance kiosk (although IMO the chances of that are incredibly unlikely, given the orientation of the kiosk to the Garden driveway and the fact there are no parking spaces along the driveway itself). However, as they are placed very close to the building, as opposed to the edge of the sidewalk where bollards would normally be located, it's doubtful they would really prevent damage if actually hit by a vehicle.
In the meanwhile, they do pose an unnecessary obstruction for pedestrians entering and exiting the subway, especially when there are large crowds due to multiple commuter trains that have arrived at the same time and/or people going to a Garden event.
As for possible security issues, I personally would be more concerned that vehicles can drive under the east end of the Garden building itself.