Lake Merritt | |||||||||||||||||||
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General information | |||||||||||||||||||
Location | 800 Madison Street Oakland, California | ||||||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 37°47′52″N122°16′00″W / 37.79777°N 122.26659°W | ||||||||||||||||||
Line(s) | BART A-Line | ||||||||||||||||||
Platforms | 1 island platform | ||||||||||||||||||
Tracks | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||
Connections | AC Transit: 18, 62, 88, 96 ACMC Highland Shuttle | ||||||||||||||||||
Construction | |||||||||||||||||||
Structure type | Underground | ||||||||||||||||||
Parking | 207 spaces | ||||||||||||||||||
Bicycle facilities | Racks, 84 lockers | ||||||||||||||||||
Accessible | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
Architect | Yuill-Thornton, Warner & Levikov [1] | ||||||||||||||||||
History | |||||||||||||||||||
Opened | September 11, 1972 | ||||||||||||||||||
Passengers | |||||||||||||||||||
2023 | 2,826 (weekday average) [2] | ||||||||||||||||||
Services | |||||||||||||||||||
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Location | |||||||||||||||||||
Lake Merritt station is an underground Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station located east of Downtown Oakland near the eponymous Lake Merritt. The station is served by the Orange, Green Line, and Blue lines. It is the nearest BART station to Chinatown, Laney College, and Jack London Square station.
The station has a single island platform located two levels below ground, with a fare mezzanine above it. The station has four entrances from Oak Street between 8th Street and 9th Street. [3]
A largely-unused oval courtyard adjacent to the fare lobby includes reliefs of sea creatures and birds designed by William Mitchell. Now-closed portholes in the reliefs allowed the public to peer into the BART Operations Control Center. [4] : 5 Walls in the station feature tile work in red, black, and off-white by Alfonso Pardiñas. [4] : 4
The construction of Lake Merritt station and the adjacent BART Administration Building leveled three blocks of Chinatown – one of several major displacements in the area, along with I-880, Laney College, and the Oakland Museum of California, that took place in the mid-20th century. [5] The station opened on September 11, 1972 – part of the first section of BART to open. [6]
The BART Administration Building was located in a dedicated six-story office building constructed concurrently on top of the station. In 2003, due to potential risk of earthquake damage, the headquarters was moved away from the station to leased space in the Kaiser Center. [7] The former Administration Building was dismantled in 2009 and 2010. [8]
Bathrooms at underground BART stations were closed after the September 11 attacks due to security concerns. The bathroom at Lake Meritt station reopened on June 28, 2022, after a renovation, with an attendant on duty during all operating hours. [9] On September 8, 2022, the BART Board approved plans for a 457-unit residential development to replace the station parking lot, with two additional phases planned. [10]
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes and 131 miles of track, including a 9-mile (14 km) spur line running to Antioch, which uses diesel multiple unit vehicles, and a 3-mile (4.8 km) automated guideway transit line serving Oakland International Airport. With an average of 164,500 weekday passengers as of the third quarter of 2023 and 41,286,400 annual passengers in 2022, BART is the seventh-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States.
Embarcadero station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit subway station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between Drumm Street and Beale Street near The Embarcadero, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. Embarcadero station opened in May 1976 – almost two years after service began through the Transbay Tube – as an infill station.
Montgomery Street station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit subway station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between Montgomery Street and Sansome Street, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. Montgomery Street and Embarcadero station to the north are typically the two busiest stations in the BART system.
Powell Street station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between 4th Street and 5th Street, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. The station is served by the BART Red, Yellow, Green Line, and Blue lines, and the Muni Metro J Church, K Ingleside, L Taraval, M Ocean View, N Judah, and S Shuttle lines.
Civic Center/UN Plaza station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit station in the Market Street subway in downtown San Francisco. Located under Market Street between 7th Street and 8th Street, it is named for the Civic Center neighborhood and the adjacent United Nations Plaza. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below.
The Chinatown neighborhood in Oakland, California, is traditionally Chinese which reflects Oakland's diverse Chinese American, and more broadly Asian American community. It is frequently referred to as "Oakland Chinatown" in order to distinguish it from nearby San Francisco's Chinatown. It lies at an elevation of 39 feet.
Balboa Park station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station and Muni Metro complex in the Mission Terrace neighborhood of San Francisco, California, located near the eponymous Balboa Park. It is an intermodal hub served by four BART routes, three Muni Metro lines, and a number of Muni bus routes. The station complex also includes two rail yards, Cameron Beach Yard and Green Light Rail Center, where Muni maintains Muni Metro trains and heritage streetcars. BART uses a below-grade island platform on the west side of the complex; Muni Metro routes use several smaller side platforms located on surface-level rail loops around the yards.
West Oakland station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in the West Oakland neighborhood of Oakland, California. It has two elevated side platforms, and is located near the eastern end of the Transbay Tube. All main BART lines except the Orange Line stop at the station. The Oakland Wye is located to the east of the station.
12th Street/Oakland City Center station is an underground Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station located under Broadway between 12th Street and 14th Street in Downtown Oakland, adjacent to the Oakland City Center. It is the second-busiest BART station in both Oakland and the East Bay, and the 6th busiest BART station overall, with a daily ridership of approximately 5,000 in September 2023.
19th Street Oakland station is an underground Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station located under Broadway between 17th Street and 20th Street in the Uptown District of Oakland, California. It is a timed transfer point between northbound trains to Richmond and to Antioch. It is the busiest BART station in both Oakland and the East Bay, and the 5th busiest BART station overall, with a daily ridership of approximately 4,700 in September 2023.
Ashby station is an underground Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in Berkeley, California. The station is located beneath Adeline Street to the south of its intersection with Ashby Avenue. The station includes park-and-ride facilities with 715 automobile parking spaces in two separate parking lots. It is served by the Orange Line and Red Line.
MacArthur station is a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in the Temescal District of Oakland, California. It is the largest station in the BART system, being the only one with four platform tracks. Service through MacArthur is timed for cross-platform transfers between the southbound lines that pass through the station. MacArthur station is located in the median of SR 24 just north of its interchange with I-580. The station is perpendicular to 40th Street and MacArthur Boulevard. The surrounding neighborhood is mostly low-density residential, making MacArthur station primarily a commuting hub.
Downtown Berkeley station is an underground Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in the Downtown Berkeley section of Berkeley, California. It is served by the Orange Line and Red Line.
The station complex of Amtrak's Oakland Coliseum station and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)'s Coliseum station is located in the East Oakland area of Oakland, California, United States. The two stations, located about 600 feet (180 m) apart, are connected to each other and to the Oakland Coliseum/Oakland Arena sports complex with an accessible pedestrian bridge. The BART station is served by the Orange, Green Line, and Blue lines; the Amtrak station is served by the Capitol Corridor service.
Downtown Oakland is the central business district of Oakland, California, United States. It is located roughly bounded by both the Oakland Estuary and Interstate 880 on the southwest, Interstate 980 on the northwest, Grand Avenue on the northeast, and Lake Merritt on the east.
Bay Area Rapid Transit, widely known by the acronym BART, is the main rail transportation system for the San Francisco Bay Area. It was envisioned as early as 1946 but the construction of the original system began in the 1960s.
Kaiser Center, also called the Kaiser Building, is a 28-story office building located at 300 Lakeside Drive, adjacent to Lake Merritt, in downtown Oakland, California, designed by the architectural firm of Welton Becket & Associates of Los Angeles. The property is bounded by Lakeside Drive, which terminates and joins Harrison Street at the site, 20th-, 21st-, and Webster-streets. When completed in 1960, it was Oakland's tallest building, as well as the largest office tower west of the Rocky Mountains. A three-story office/retail building adjacent to the main tower was completed in 1963. Kaiser Center was the headquarters of Kaiser Industries, a Fortune 500 conglomerate that was headed by industrialist Edgar F. Kaiser at the time the building was constructed.
The Oakland Airport Connector is an automated guideway transit (AGT) system operated by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) between BART's Coliseum station and Oakland International Airport station. The line is colored on BART maps as the Beige Line. The system is integrated into BART's fare system. The line opened for revenue service on November 22, 2014, replacing the AirBART shuttle bus service that had operated since July 1, 1977. Currently operating between two terminal stations, the system includes provisions for an intermediate third station that may be built at a later date.
The Oakland Wye is an underground flying wye junction in downtown Oakland, California which serves the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. Trains can switch between (a) the northbound Richmond or Antioch lines, (b) the westbound San Francisco lines, and (c) the southbound Berryessa or Dublin/Pleasanton lines. The Oakland Wye is the center of the BART system, and is a bottleneck for the whole system because every regularly scheduled BART train passes through it.
Tempo is a bus rapid transit (BRT) service in Oakland and San Leandro in California. It is operated by AC Transit as Line 1T. The route has dedicated lanes and center-boarding stations along much of the corridor, prepaid fares, signal preemption, and all-door boarding.
Media related to Lake Merritt station at Wikimedia Commons