- published: 15 Feb 2016
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The Montreal Metro (French: Métro de Montréal) is a rubber-tired, underground metro system, and the main form of public transport, in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The Metro, operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), was inaugurated on October 14, 1966, during the tenure of Mayor Jean Drapeau. Originally consisting of 26 stations on three separate lines, the Metro now has 68 stations on four lines totalling 69.2 kilometres (43.0 mi) in length, serving the north, east, and centre of the Island of Montreal with connections to Longueuil, via the Yellow Line, and Laval, via the Orange line.
The Montreal Metro is Canada's busiest metro system, and North America's third busiest in total daily passenger usage behind those of New York City and Mexico City, delivering an average of 1,245,700 daily unlinked passenger trips per weekday (as of Q1 2014). In 2013, 356.1 million trips on the Metro were completed (transfers counted as separate trips). According to the STM website the Metro system had transported over 7 billion passengers as of 2010, roughly equivalent to the world's population. Montreal has built one of North America's largest urban rapid transit schemes, serving the fourth-largest number of passengers overall (after New York City, Mexico City, and Toronto) and attracting the second-highest ridership per capita behind New York City.
Montreal (i/ˌmʌntriːˈɒl/;French: Montréal,pronounced: [mɔ̃ʁeal]) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec. It is the second largest city in Canada and the 26th largest in the Americas. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary," it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with warm to hot summers and cold snowy winters.
In 2011 the city had a population of 1,649,519. Montreal's metropolitan area had a population of 3,824,221 and a population of 1,886,481 in the urban agglomeration, with all of the municipalities on the Island of Montreal included. The 2014 estimate of the population of the metropolitan area of Montreal is 4.1 million.
French is the city's official language and is the language spoken at home by 56.9% of the population of the city, followed by English at 18.6% and 19.8% other languages (in the 2006 census). In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 67.9% of the population speaks French at home, compared to 16.5% who speak English. Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada with 56% of the population able to speak both English and French. Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.