Farmdale is an Expo Line Station that wasn't completed on opening day and was originally bypasses. It opened nearly two months later on June 20, 2013, the same day as Culver City. The station has two side platforms that are fully offset from each other across the intersection of Farmdale Avenue. The Los Angeles-bound platform begins at the west side of the intersection, the Culver City-bound begins the east side. The intersection is also a transition area for the Expo Line where the median-running portion of the Expo Line transitions to a more grade-separated (there is just one additional grade crossing after Farmdale) line via elevated guideways for the last three stations to Culver City. The Culver City-bound platform is in the median between separate roadways of Exposition Blvd (both are two-way), although a low concrete sound wall instead of just a fence is along the opposite track. The Los Angeles-bound paltform is boarded by the fence of Dorsey High School and only the northbound roadway of Exposition Blvd that continues west from the station. The Farmdale grade-crossing and others intersections east of the station do have crossing gates that allow for faster operations than traffic light controlled intersections but no intersections along the line are grade-separated between here and Expo Park/USC. The Expo Line did though split a number of streets in two to limit the number of street crossings.
The station platforms themselves each have the normal aqua-blue steel and silver canopies over the middle of the platforms plus the distinctive wavy steel canopies over the rest of them. Artwork along the platforms consists of mosaic panels of All in a Day, 2012 by Michael Massenburg that depict snapshots of daily life. The platforms each only have exits to the Farmdale intersection with emergency exit gates down to staircases at their opposite ends. Not having an additional exit from the Los Angeles-bound platform is fine since it is along a high school but there is no reason that the Los Angeles-bound platform can't have a couple TAP readers at the staircase and a crosswalk across the north lanes of Exposition Blvd.
The actual entrances are distinctive. The exit from the Los Angeles-bound platform is only ramp that loops its way off the end of the platform to a small plaza next to an access road into the grounds of the high school. TVMs are beneath a canopy with black Metro M's and lettering near the ramp. The entrance to the Culver City-bound platform in the middle of the intersection is tight with a staircase with two TAP validators leading straight up to the end of the platform and a ramp parallel to the side of the platform arriving a short ways down. Without room for TVMs here and to keep the platform a fare paid area the TVMs have been situated under a similar canopy to those for the Los Angeles-bound platform across the northern lanes of Exposition Blvd at the NE corner of the intersection.
All Photos take on 23 June, 2013
Expo/La Brea
