Ambitiously envisioned as early as the 1910s, Montreal’s metro was built by the City with powerful momentum from Expo 67. Inaugurated on October 14, 1966, it has become one of those familiar places we use without giving it much thought. It keeps rolling with its recognizable tou-dou-douuu, despite the daily challenges of maintaining such infrastructure and serving the public. The metro is part of the metropolis’s future solutions, whether economic, environmental, social or cultural.

Given the extensive need for public transit, we can share the impatience of the metropolis’s political, economic and environmental advocates. Yet we should remember that its completion within a very tight timeline reflects both its founders’ determination and their vision of a public service proudly incorporating distinctive architecture at every station, along with public art.

Héritage Montréal joins the co-signatories of an opinion piece calling for the metro’s legacy to be preserved and its future to be expanded.

This history and heritage are part of the challenges facing the network’s future. In 1999, citizen alerts about ill-advised renovations, particularly at Place-des-Arts station, led us to meet with the transit authority’s senior management. That meeting sparked several collaborations between the transit authority, heritage organizations and Montreal universities. These efforts made it possible to classify stations according to their architectural, technological and urban significance and to support the conservation of artworks often exposed to vandalism. The transit authority also worked with the City of Montreal to develop a statement of heritage significance for the entire network, following the example of other major cities.

In 2026, we can welcome this greater recognition of our metro as infrastructure essential to collective life and as heritage that distinguishes and serves our cultural metropolis. We wish the metro a long life and an expansion worthy of the distinctive vision that brought it into being. And we wish everyone many opportunities to discover its architectural and artistic heritage, both present and future!

Happy birthday to the metro!