STM unveils new blue line station names
The STM has unveiled the names of the new blue line stations.
What do we think? Vertières, Mary-Two-Axe-Earley, Césira-Parisotto, Madeleine-Parent and Anjou.
Vertières is the name of a battle that led to Haitian independence, is a nod to the Haitian community here, and makes for a nice usable name.
But although naming stations after women sounds good in theory, I’m not sure any of those three stations is going to really be called by those names by locals. They’re just too much.
steph 13:09 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
Where you familiar with these women in history before this announcement? I think a bit of time and familiarity seeing the station names on the map will help solve the “mouthful of words I’m not familiar with” knee jert reaction – I encourage everyone to go read their wiki pages as a bio intro. Lets not be old people “I don’t like new things” just yet. I’m really happy they named the stations after women.
DeWolf 13:25 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
So much bellyaching on the internet about this. It’s not even unprecedented. People seem to forget that Lionel-Groulx and Lucien-L’Allier were named in honour of specific people and not anything in the local geography (the adjacent streets were renamed to match the metro stations).
By the time people start using the stations these names will be as familiar to everyone as Jean-Talon and de la Savane and Angrignon.
Ian 13:31 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
Berri-De Montigny was named after the streets and then they went and changed the street name.
Kate 13:56 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
I had heard the name Mary Two-Axe Earley but could not have said what she was known for. I knew Madeleine Parent was a labour activist. I had not heard of the Italian woman, and neither has Wikipedia. She was a nun.
I’m only interested in the utility of the words as names for places. I was just as annoyed by Griffintown-Bernard-Landry and at least partly for similar reasons. Does anyone call the yellow line terminus Longueuil‑Université‑de‑Sherbrooke in common speech?
Nicholas 14:15 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
I think it’s great that in a society that so values laïcité, enough that we can ban people praying publicly, we can come together and not only keep religious symbols and figures in our public square, because history, but add more! So long as they’re Catholic.
In the city that had to apologize for putting a woman in a hijab in a group of people on a city poster, can you imagine the reaction if we named a station in the Petit Maghreb after an Imam? The Journal de Montréal would need to buy a new server just to handle the op-eds.
Jim 14:38 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
I think the main goal in naming a major public transit access point should be clarity and easy recognition. Montreal hasn’t always excelled at that. When I first moved here, I struggled even to pronounce Lionel-Groulx. But as DeWolf points out, names become familiar over time.
I’m in favour of naming stations after remarkable women. That said, being a woman isn’t automatically a pass. History can be unkind in hindsight.
H. John 14:46 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
I met Mary Two-Axe Earley.
Gail Valaskakis, a Concordia Communications professor (later Dean) and herself aboriginal, asked her to speak to our class at the School of Community and Public affairs (SCPA).
Joey 15:30 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
One-word station names are underrated.
CE 16:48 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
@Jim, remember when there was a terminus called “Honoré Beaugrand” and another called “Henri Bourassa”? I know they’re not *that* similar but they were similar enough that they caused confusion. I was very happy when the eastern orange line terminus changed to Montmorency!
Joey 17:40 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
@CE if you’ve ever taken NJ Transit from Newark airport, the second to last stop before Penn Station in Manhattan is… Penn Station in Newark.
PatrickC 17:54 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
Vertières sounds a lot like Verchères, which is a town downriver on the South Shore. Schoolkids used to learn about Madeleine de Verchères as a New France heroine. I will also be interested to hear how the metro voice gives a clipped French spin to “Mary Two-Axe Earley”
Kate 19:28 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
PatrickC: Oh yes. I always enjoy how the 55 bus voice does “Rue Gary-Carteuuuurrr” as it passes by Jarry Park.
Ian 21:28 on 2025-09-09 Permalink
My personal favourite is “bacon’s feld” for Beaconsfield
Anton 01:32 on 2025-09-10 Permalink
80% random people without much connection to the place. Names are long and complicated. It’s very meh.
Kate 10:30 on 2025-09-10 Permalink
You can hear the metro voice already on this STM page.
CE 12:15 on 2025-09-10 Permalink
They way she says “Vertières” sounds really nice.
Orr 14:11 on 2025-09-10 Permalink
@CE Montreal has a Ville-St-Laurent, where my grandmother lived, and a metro station St-Laurent.
I lived outside Montreal in my youth and I learned that the St-Laurent metro station was not in Ville St-Laurent by getting on the St-laurent bus outside the St-Laurent metro station and when I got to the end of the line I asked the driver. “Is this Ville St-Laurent?”
Ian 15:25 on 2025-09-10 Permalink
One of my friends did domething similar, i lived on du College in St Henri… and yeah.