Burbank Airport – North opened as an infill station on the Antelope Valley Line on May 14, 2018. The station was built to provide Antelope Valley Line passengers access to Burbank Airport supplementing the existing station (that is walking distance to the terminals) on the Ventura County Line and Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner and Coast Starlight.
The station has a plaque “honoring Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, for his vision and leadership in developing the Burbank Airport-North Metrolink Station to provide a vital train-to-plane connection. As a Metrolink and Metro board member for more than 20 years. He was a steadfast champion for Metrolink’s Antelope Valley Line as well as public transportation throughout Los Angeles County.”
The simple station is a located one mile from the current Burbank Airport passenger terminal where SP+ Parking, the parking operator, operates an on-demand shuttle van between this station and the airport. When I visited the station on my way to catch a flight out of Burbank Airport in March 2024, the experience was a bit confusing. Using the shuttle requires that you have a cell phone, and the number is only posted at the southern kiss & ride area at the station, although the shuttle leaves from the northern pull off from San Fernando Blvd. Calling the phone number reaches what is confusingly answered as “the Parking Office” and they even ask your name as you request your shuttle to get to the terminal with the shuttle arriving 10 minutes later. On my first visit to the station in August 2023 to just photograph it a shuttle was already waiting at the station for a member of the flight crew who I assumed had the phone number already on their phone and called from the train to request it before we arrived at the station. As of March 2024, the phone number is (818) 729-2245.
The station itself consists of a single side platform on the west side of the Antelope Valley Line that has a single track in this area. This platform is located directly between the train track and San Fernando Blvd, (that has two different two-way sections of street with the train track running down the middle of it) The station area begins with a short ramp leading up to the end of the platform at the northern end of the underpass of Hollywood Way and runs north. This Hollywood Way Grade Separation was dedicated in 1970.
The side platform is quite simple and 4 steps up from the sidewalk of San Fernando Blvd, including three different (one at both ends and one in the middle) short ramps up to the platform. Two shelter structures providing cover for waiting passengers. These shelters have brown frameworks and canopies colored gray on the top and cream underneath. Under the shelters are benches for waiting passengers and a Metrolink TVM. A line of greenery with bushes and trees separates the platform from the sidewalk of San Fernando Blvd.
All passenger access is from San Fernando Blvd, and consists of a bus stop (for Northbound buses only, southbound buses require crossing the street) by the southern end of the platform in the travel lane of San Fernando Blvd. This is followed by a small pull off area out of traffic that can accommodate about 3 cars which is the station’s Kiss & Ride. There is no space for greenery behind this section of the platform instead there is just a tiled (primarily with grey square tiles) wall with a base painted a turquoise color. On this decorative wall, silver letters spell out Burbank Airport – North Metrolink Station. Alongside the sidewalk on the northern end of the platform is a second turn-off area with Buses Only stenciled into the vehicle area. This is where (except in my photos from August 2023 when it was closed for some construction) the shuttle to and from the airport terminal picks-up and drops off (and immediately has to go around the block after leaving the station to turn-around to be in the proper southern direction to reach the airport).
As of March 2024, the page for the station on the Metrolink website says there is no parking at the station, although across the street from the station is a small sign that says Metrolink Parking by a driveway that leads back to a parking area with a number of spots signed for Low-Emission vehicles only (but no EV-Charging). It’s hard to say how much of this parking lot is for Metrolink because it is shared with some new office park development. This parking lot wasn’t built with the station and still looked under construction when I visited in August 2023 (but a sign for the parking was installed around 2002 according to Google Streetview by a then fully closed parking lot).
Photos 1-52: August 4, 2023; 2-80: February 23, 2024;
Sun Valley