Washington Park (MAX station)

Infobox Station
name=Washington Park
type=MAX station


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address=Washington Park, Portland
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platform=1 island platform
depth=70 metres (260 feet)
levels=2
tracks=2
parking=none
bicycle=
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passengers=
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opened=1998
closed=
rebuilt=
electrified=1998
ADA=yes
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Washington Park is a station in the MAX Light Rail system served by the Blue and Red lines. It is located in Portland, Oregon and is a part of the Robertson Tunnel under Portland's West Hills. While it is the only completely underground station in the MAX system, at 260 feet (70 meters) below the surface it is the deepest in North America, and second deepest in the world (after Moscow's Park Pobedy at 318 ft/97 m). [ [http://www.trimet.org/max/stations/wapkss.htm Trimet.org] ] It is the fourth station westbound on the Westside MAX alignment.

This station serves many popular destinations. Its surface level plaza is located in the middle of a parking lot surrounded by the Oregon Zoo to the east, World Forestry Center to the west, Portland Children's Museum to the south, Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the northwest, and Hoyt Arboretum to the north. Bus service, including a seasonal shuttle, and trails, some part of the 40 Mile Loop, connect this station to other parts of Washington Park, including the International Rose Test Garden and the Portland Japanese Garden.

Construction of the surface portion included a public plaza named in honor of Les AuCoin, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who supported the project. In addition, the zoo entrance was moved north the weekend after the station opened to be next to it.

Underground

Trains entering the tunnel more than a mile away can be heard from the platforms. They move at up to 55 mph (90 km/h) [ [http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/history/railfactsheet-westside.pdf Westside light rail ] ] and push a stream of constant temperature air into the station. This, coupled with the surrounding rock, keeps the platform at a natural average of 50 °F (10 °C) year round.

The Robertson Tunnel consists of two rail tubes, one for each direction of travel. The station platform is between the rails, accessed from the left side of trains.

A geological timeline—created from a drilling sample—runs along the platform walls. Two high-speed elevators are located at either end of the underground station; visitors to the Oregon Zoo are directed to the east elevators while people going to the World Forestry Center are pointed to the west.

Elevators

As a part of the station's geological theme, the elevators mark their position—not by conventional floor numbers—but by "the present" and "16 million years ago". The elevator's interior display shows position as elevation above sea level in feet. Due to the hillside surface slope, the west elevators are 20 feet (7 m) taller than the east elevators.

The elevators allow selecting two floors, "S" and "T", presumably for surface and train levels. The twenty-six story (twenty-eight for the west elevators) equivalent ride takes about twenty-five seconds.

The eastern platform is marked by yellow roof girders, indicating the sunrise. The westbound platform has orange roof girders, indicating the sunset. The platforms were nicknamed Sunrise and Sunset respectively by TriMet.

Miscellanea

* The Washington Park MAX station was one of the filming locations in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know (2004).

* A memorial to the only worker killed during the construction of the Robertson Tunnel is located on the inside wall of the tunnel portal located at the east end of the Sunset platform.

* The value of pi is carved into the wall of the eastbound platform. However only the first 11 decimal places are correct. It has been determined that the digits displayed are digits 1..10, 101..110, 201..210 etc. [ http://www.docbug.com/blog/archives/000687.html ]

References

External links