Back of the Hill station
Light rail station in Boston, Massachusetts, US
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Back of the Hill station is a light rail stop on the Green Line E branch of the MBTA subway system, located in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is named after, and primarily serves, the adjacent Back of the Hill apartment complex, a Section 8 development for elderly and disabled residents. Back of the Hill is located on the street running section of the E branch on South Huntington Avenue. The station has no platforms; passengers wait in bus shelters (shared with route 39 buses) on the sidewalks and cross a traffic lane to reach Green Line trains.[2][3] The stop is not accessible.[3] The MBTA plans to close Back of the Hill by late 2029 as part of renovations to nearby Heath Street station.
Boston, Massachusetts
Back of the Hill | |||||||||||
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An inbound train at Back of the Hill station in 2011 | |||||||||||
| General information | |||||||||||
| Location | South Huntington Avenue at Back of the Hill Boston, Massachusetts | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 42.32926°N 71.11093°W | ||||||||||
| Platforms | None (passengers wait on sidewalk) | ||||||||||
| Tracks | 2 | ||||||||||
| Connections |  MBTA bus: 39 | ||||||||||
| Construction | |||||||||||
| Accessible | No | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| Opened | c. 1982 | ||||||||||
| Closed | Late 2020s (planned) | ||||||||||
| Passengers | |||||||||||
| 2011 | 35 daily boardings[1] | ||||||||||
| Services | |||||||||||
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History
The Boston Elevated Railway opened streetcar tracks on the newly-laid-out South Huntington Avenue between Centre Street and Huntington Avenue on May 11, 1903. The company began Jamaica Plain–Park Street service via South, Centre, South Huntington, and Huntington as a branch of existing Boston–Brookline service on Huntington Avenue.[4][5]: 61 All Huntington Avenue service (except for Northeastern University and Brigham Circle short turns) operated on South Huntington after September 10, 1938.[6] The line became part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1947, and part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in 1967; it was designated as the E Branch of the MBTA Green Line in 1967.[7]
By the 1970s, E Branch trains stopped at Riverway and Heath Street, with no stop between them.[8] The Back of the Hill apartment complex, located just north of Heath Street, was built in 1980 and opened in 1981.[9][10][11] The E Branch was closed for track work from June 21, 1980, to June 26, 1982; trains began stopping at Back of the Hill then or after.[7]
Back of the Hill is the least-used stop on the MBTA subway system, averaging only 35 riders per day by a 2011 count. It was one of only four stops to average fewer than 100 riders per day.[1][note 1] In 2021, the MBTA indicated plans to modify the Heath Street–Brigham Circle section of the E branch with accessible platforms to replace the existing non-accessible stopping locations.[12] Design work for the project began in July 2023.[13][14] In December 2024, the MBTA indicated plans to close the Back of the Hill stop due to its proximity to Heath Street and the difficulty of building platforms at the site.[3] As of December 2025[update], construction of the project is expected to take place in 2027–2029.[15]
