The New Montreal Metro Blue Line Stations Might Not (All) Be Named After Dead White Dudes

Pie-IX, born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was a 19th-century pope. Charles-Théodore Viau was a moustached businessman and landowner. Jean-Baptiste Henri-Dominique Lacordaire was a fervent Catholic preacher. And François Charles Stanislas Langelier was a career politician. All of them are dead. All of them were men. And all of them are namesakes for the provisional labels attached to future Montreal metro stations on the blue line extension: Pie-IX, Viau, Lacordaire and Langelier.

But these monikers likely won't be as tenacious as the white patriarchy these men represent. An STM spokesperson told MTL Blog that the transit company plans to unveil the official names for blue line extension stations in 2023. The organization has also recommitted to including the names of women and nods to "multicultural and Indigenous realities" in its considerations.

That pledge dates to January 2021, when the STM first convened a 14-person "toponymy committee" charged with choosing new station names. The metro extension project website also clearly stated the commitment in its FAQ section, but the STM appears to have removed mention of it in the fall of 2022.

That FAQ section also initially stated that the STM planned to announce official station names by the end of 2022. That was already a postponement from the original 2021 deadline.

The provisional station designations come from either the names of streets that are perpendicular to the extension route or, in the case of the fifth and final station, the name of the neighbourhood it will serve — Anjou.

The green line of the Montreal metro, which runs parallel to the blue, already has stations named after three of those streets, Pie-IX, Viau and Langelier.

As La Presse first reported, STM Board of Directors Chair Éric Alan Caldwell has expressed interest in prioritizing new names for those three blue line stations. He told the Montreal City Council in response to a citizen question on February 20 that he agreed the potential duplication with the green line presented an opportunity for more creativity.

He also perhaps cast doubt on the latest timeline for the station name announcement. "We have time," he said. "The [station] inaugurations are scheduled for 2029."