Is it “Melrose (Cedar Park)”? Or, “Melrose Cedar-Park”, or was it “Melrose-Cedar Park”? AAAAAAAAAAAAA I HATE INCONSISTENT SPELLING! Well, whatever, for the sake of this entry, I’m going with how it’s spelt on the T’s website (Melrose/Cedar Park). Well, here’s Cedar Park!
So, Melrose/Cedar Park is right adjacent to a park (duh), and is pretty much Melrose’s central station. Just one issue that makes it among the least-used stations on the entire system: it isn’t accessible! The parking is there, it’s in a town center-like area, but it’s not ADA accessible and the Haverhill suffers from Single Track Syndrome majorly beyond Wakefield and in Malden. As for the station itself, it’s nothing too special. You have parking on both sides, shelters, benches, wastebaskets, the red dot matrix sign on the inbound platform. Ya know, the usuals. There’s also a park here, which when I was here was holding the last farmers market of the season. Neat! (We stan transit-accessible community events.) Overall, walking to here from Melrose Highlands (& by extension, the walk to Wyoming Hill), I actually got to appreciate how lively Melrose actually felt. Maybe it was the routing Google Maps took me, but I got to appreciate how lively the town was and that I never saw that kind of stuff growing up or back at home.
The good: It’s in a central-ish area! You have some parking and a rather decent walkshed with various types of land use within a 10 minute walk. Neat! The area in general has charm too, and I need to come back to Melrose some time.
The bad: Unfortunately, not only is it inaccessible, there’s also no direct bus connections, with the nearest one (the 137) being a 10 minute walk away. Oh well. ALSO, THE STATION’S NAMING IS INCONSISTENT. LET’S SEE: YOU HAVE “MELROSE/CEDAR PARK” ON THE T WEBSITE AND THE PARKING SIGN, “MELROSE-CEDAR PARK” ON THE INBOUND PLATFORM, “MELROSE CEDAR-PARK” ON THE OUTBOUND PLATFORM, AND IT PROBABLY SAYS “MELROSE CEDAR PARK” WITHOUT ANY SLASHES OR HYPHENS SOMEWHERE IN SOME PIECE OF MBTA LITERATURE, PROBABLY ON SOME RANDOM INTERNAL KEOLIS DOCUMENT!
Nearby points of interest: There’s a park and a few businesses! Melrose’s Main St. between here and Wyoming Hill is lined with businesses too, so there’s that.
Transit connections:
Commuter Rail (Haverhill)
MBTA bus (137, at Main & Emerson)
Overall, while the accessibility sucks, I otherwise like the station personally, along with the area in general. And, while it sucks I couldn’t get any train shots from here, I can always return and get some. But, also, AAAAAAA THE INCONSISTENT SIGNAGE THOUGH
Rating: 5/10
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