Ball Square station

Ball Square station is an under-construction light rail station on the MBTA Green Line E Branch in the Ball Square neighborhood of Somerville and Medford, Massachusetts. Ball Square will consist of one island platform, which will serve the E Branch's two tracks.
History.
Railroad station.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad opened through Somerville and Medford in 1835, although local passenger stops were not added until several years later. By 1855, no station was yet opened at Broadway on the Somerville/Medford border. However, it soon became an unloading point for cattle bound for the Brighton Abattoir; the railroad built a cattle station in 1859, and passenger operations likely followed. By 1875, the station was named Willow Bridge and located on the west side of the tracks just north of Broadway. It was renamed North Somerville in the mid-1880s.
A southbound freight train derailed at the station on June 25, 1916, blocking the line for over 24 hours and attracting 10,000 onlookers.
Horsecars, and later streetcars consolidated under the Boston Elevated Railway, cut sharply into local railroad traffic. All stops inbound from North Somerville were closed prior to the 1950s. On April 18, 1958, the Public Utilities Commission approved a vast set of cuts to Boston and Maine Railroad commuter service, including the closure of North Somerville, Tufts College, and Medford Hillside stations. The three stations were closed on May 18, 1958, amid the first of a series of cuts. The station building, modified for other uses, remained standing until around 1990.
A Ball Square commuter rail station – either in addition to a Green Line station or in lieu of it – was listed as a possibility in 2012 as an interim air quality mitigation measure in response to delays in building the Green Line Extension. However, such a station would have been costly to build and could not have been completed by the 2015 deadline, and was thus not supported by MassDOT.
Green Line station.
In December 2016, projected completion of the station was delayed to 2021. Construction of the platform foundation was underway by August 2020.
Public art at the station will include "Tour Jeté Series" by Christine Vaillancourt – colored geometric glass forms located on the elevator tower – as well as historic images and views of Vaillancourt's artwork on panels on the station signs. , the station is expected to open in December 2021. Original plans called for the D Branch to be extended to Medford/Tufts. However, in April 2021, the MBTA indicated that the Medford Branch would instead be served by the E Branch.