Friendship Heights station

Coordinates: 38°57′39″N 77°05′10″W / 38.960921°N 77.086059°W / 38.960921; -77.086059
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Friendship Heights
Friendship Heights station platform from mezzanine
General information
Location5337 Wisconsin Avenue NW
Washington, D.C.
Coordinates38°57′39″N 77°05′10″W / 38.960921°N 77.086059°W / 38.960921; -77.086059
Owned byWashington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Platforms1 island platform
Tracks2
Connections
Construction
Structure typeUnderground
Bicycle facilitiesCapital Bikeshare, 50 racks and 22 lockers
AccessibleYes
Other information
Station codeA08
History
OpenedAugust 25, 1984; 39 years ago (August 25, 1984)
Passengers
20232,910 daily[1]
Rank33 out of 98
Services
Preceding station Washington Metro Following station
Bethesda
toward Shady Grove
 Red Line Tenleytown–AU
toward Glenmont
Location
Map

Friendship Heights station is a Washington Metro station on the Red Line straddling the border of Washington, D.C., and Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The station was opened on August 25, 1984, and is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).

Location[edit]

The station is at the 5400 block of Wisconsin Avenue, Northwest and serves the neighborhoods of Chevy Chase and Friendship Heights. The area is a major retail shopping and broadcast media district. The station also serves as a bus depot linking Montgomery County Transit's Ride-On bus system with the Washington Metro. It is directly adjacent to the Western Division Metrobus garage on 44th Street and Harrison Street NW.

Notable places nearby[edit]

History[edit]

The station opened on August 25, 1984.[2][3] Its opening coincided with the completion of 6.8 miles (10.9 km) of rail northwest of the Van Ness–UDC station and the opening of the Bethesda, Grosvenor, Medical Center and Tenleytown stations.[2][3][4]

To enable Metro to perform train turnarounds south of Grosvenor-Strathmore, a diamond crossover exists just north of the station. Occasionally, during rush hours (for schedule adjustments) or during track maintenance, trains terminate here. When this happens, trains offload their passengers on the Shady Grove-bound track, exit the station, switch direction just north of the interlocking, and then run through the interlocking to the Glenmont (towards downtown)-bound track.

Station layout[edit]

This station uses the four-coffer arch design found at most underground stations on the western side of the Red Line. Unlike its many counterparts such as Van Ness-UDC and Tenleytown-AU, the station's walls are more rounded. Friendship Heights is the only station in the system with this design that has mezzanines at both ends of the platform.

The station is one of 11 stations in the system constructed with rock tunneling and is accordingly deeper than most stations in the system.[5] Its platform is more than 100 feet (30 m) below its north entrance.[6] The escalator has a length of 130 feet (40 m) and rises 65 feet (20 m) feet above the mezzanine level.[7] The escalator ride from the common room at the north entrance to the mezzanine level takes roughly a minute and a half.[citation needed]

Two of its five exits sit on the Maryland side of Western Avenue, whereas the other three exit into the District. At the Western Avenue entrance, four separate street entrances come together in an upper mezzanine, allowing riders to access a set of three escalators that go to the platform. One entrance is located at a side entrance to the lobby of an entrance to the former C-level of Mazza Gallerie that has access to Western Avenue. Another entrance offers direct access to Chevy Chase Pavilion. The newest entrance, located off Wisconsin Avenue next to The Shops at Wisconsin Place, opened between 2011 and 2022, replacing an earlier entrance that led directly into a Hecht's. The new entrance is located across Wisconsin Avenue from the station's main entrance, which surfaces in a large bus depot underneath the Chevy Chase Metro Building. A second entrance, at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Jenifer Street NW, is elevator-only, with four high-speed elevators servicing the station's south mezzanine.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Metrorail Ridership Summary". Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
  2. ^ a b "Red Line adds 6.8 miles". The Washington Post. August 25, 1984. p. B1.
  3. ^ a b Brisbane, Arthur S. (August 26, 1984). "All aboard; Metro festivities welcome latest Red Line extension". The Washington Post. p. A1.
  4. ^ "Sequence of Metrorail openings" (PDF). WMATA. 2017. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 12, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
  5. ^ "See some of the reasons why Metrorail is hard to maintain". Washington Post. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  6. ^ Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (August 1983). Metrorail Station Area Planning: A Metrorail before-and-After Study Report (PDF). p. 88. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  7. ^ JohnsonJuly 8, TransitBy Matt. "What are the 10 longest Metro escalators?". ggwash.org. Retrieved February 6, 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

External links[edit]

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