Sierra Madre Villa was the northern terminus of the Gold Line from when the light rail first opened on July 26, 2003 until the 11.5 mile Foothill Extension 2A opened on March 5, 2016.
The station is the main large park and ride station for the gold line and has a five story parking garage with 841 free parking spaces, and 124 paid reserved spaces located on the north side of the freeway. There is a bus loop on the first level and sidewalk entrances from Sierra Madre Villa Avenue.
To reach the Light Rail platform, passengers must take one of 4 elevators to the 4th floor, where TVMs are located and take a bridge across the northbound lanes of traffic which has mesh sides. When finally above the single island platform. There is artwork, consisting of large black and white portraits called Untitled by Tony Gleaton above the two staircases that go down on opposite directions to the island platform. There are also two elevators. This one station entrance is towards the western end of the platform, the eastern end is covered for its entire length by a canopy.
When Sierra Madre Villa was the terminus of the Gold Line, before the extension to Azusa opened, trains use a diamond crossover to change track directions back before entering the station but the two tracks continued a short ways beyond the platform and could be used to store a few extra trains. The tracks continuing beyond the station is also where the new tracks for the extension to Azusa were cut into the existing line.
All Photos taken on 19 March, 2010
Allen
