Douglaston is a station on the Port Washington Line of the LIRR located in eastern Queens, in the Douglaston neighborhood. Let’s take a look at it.
My train here was running a bit late because of the hordes of passengers that got on at both Woodside and Mets-Willett Point (there was a Mets game that night), rendering the train to both be nearly crush-load for a little bit AND for a 12-car set to be used (which cannot platform fully pretty much anywhere on the line aside from Woodside and Penn Station/Grand Central Terminal). As for the station itself, you have a station house (which was surprisingly open at the hour I was here – 11pm?!), level boarding, ticketing machines, a shelter to wait in outside the station house, and even a kiss & ride on each side. As for land use, it’s eastern Queens. You have a small and relatively low density business district around the station. As for accessibility, while the station is accessible, one has to go around and cross via Douglaston Parkway for step-free crossovers. Which can take a while (about 10 minutes, measuring it out). Yikes. Overall though, not a bad station!
The good: It serves the local neighborhood and is (technically) accessible! Also, service to Manhattan is rather frequent being half-hourly! There’s also a station house that’s open during most hours (seemingly), which can’t be said for most stations I’ve reviewed here.
The bad: WHY IS THERE NO RAMP GOING UNDER THE TRACKS?! DOES THE LIRR HATE ACCESSIBILITY ON THIS LINE OR SOMETHING?!
Nearby points of interest: there’s a whole mini-downtown area here! There’s also a school, a church, and the Allen-Beville House.
Transit connections:
LIRR (Port Washington)
MTA bus (on Rt. 25A) (Q12)
Overall, it’s not a bad station, and the area around it is kinda nice. If anything, I should probably come back during the daytime and check some stuff out.
Rating: 7.5/10
