Waban is a surface-level rapid transit station on the Green Line "D" Branch of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. It is located just south of Beacon Street at Waban Square, in the Waban section of Newton, Massachusetts. The station opened on July 4, 1959. Unlike many other T stops in the Boston suburbs, Waban has its own extensive parking lot. The lot has 74 spaces and 3 accessible spaces, and spaces cost $5.50 a day. Unfortunately, to achieve this, an H.H. Richardson-designed train station, like those still standing in Newton Highlands and Newton Center, was demolished. The original station was completed in August 1886 as part of the Boston and Albany Railroad and was one of the last stations designed by Richardson before his death in April 1886, four months before the station was finished.
Originally, the Eliot stop was to have been named Waban, and the Waban stop was to have been named Eliot, but the two names were switched accidentally when the first train schedules were printed, and it was easier to change the names of the stations than to print new schedules. The Eliot Oak is located east of Annawan Road southwest of the Waban station.
Today the station has two MBTA ticket machines for reloading stored-value CharlieCards and buying CharlieTickets. It also has one fare validation machine. All three are enclosed in a heated passenger shed near the center of the Inbound platform. The station also has two large, outdoor LED signs, which display service announcements. When shown, announcements are delivered simultaneously over a number of audio speakers attached to the station's overhead wire support columns. The Station is Handicapped Accessible.
October 8, 2018