Pasadena Rail Stations to Tie Design to Function

The half-dozen light-rail station stops in Pasadena “will be leaders in design,” Pasadena transit official John Jontig said.

A vast transportation hub is planned for the station at Del Mar Boulevard and Raymond Avenue on the edge of Old Pasadena. It will provide parking for 600 to 800 cars and connections to a local bus network.

The county’s first light-rail station within a building will be at Memorial Park by Holly Street. The trains will stop at a platform underneath the new Civic Center West, a development that will combine 375 residences and commercial offices on the site of the former police station.

The Lake Avenue station will have a platform in the median of the Foothill Freeway. Stairs and elevators will connect it with the Lake Avenue overpass. City officials say they are working on designs to soften the impact on commuters who will make their way through the station, located in a freeway area that Mayor Rick Cole calls a “concrete desert.”

The stations at Allen Avenue and Sierra Madre Villa Avenue, both along the Foothill Freeway, will sit 25 feet above the street in a Disneyland-style station. A park-and-ride facility with 1,000 parking spaces is planned for the Sierra Madre Villa stop.