Happy 60th birthday, Montreal Metro! Here’s a look at how it started — and where it’s going

The Montreal Metro, one of the many ways to get around the island of Montreal. It's celebrating 60 years in service and the STM says since it's opened, it's done more than 11 billion trips. The Metro opened in 1966 with 20 stations on the orange and green lines. It was different, much more modern. The trains, you know, on the tires and the stations, all different. So it was a big hit right from the start. Over the years, the system has expanded to a total of 68 stations. The last extension to Laval opened in 2007. The cars have changed too. Five more stations on the Blue Line are expected to open in 2031. It's just such a great gift to have such a beautiful method of transportation in Montreal. Honestly, to me, it just means getting to school and home. As the Metro celebrates this milestone, many are reminiscing. My favourite memory is the first time I took it with my mom, back in probably 1967. We just went from Atwater to McGill Station. I also remember the first time I took the Metro on my own. It wasn't necessarily a good memory because I got lost. I was pretty young, but it's memorable for sure. These circles are messages to the Metro from employees and everyday riders. There are about 2,000 of them here. Let's check some of them out. One of the ones that I saw back there said, the metro saved my life. This one says, one of my first school field trips was a ride on the Green Line. In 60 years from now, I think we have to double the station that we have and especially make it free for every Montrealer. But before expansion is possible, experts warn that more needs to be done to protect what's already here and that investments aren't keeping up with the need for maintenance. We need to replace the rolling stock so they're the cars we need to upgrade the ticket to make it universally accessible like most station or at least the vast majority of station and upkeep the state of the infrastructure the physical state of the infrastructure like we have leaking in station or like all the equipment like escalators elevators and so on they need to work perfectly. Even though the Metro is getting close in retirement age it's not going anywhere. Officials want to expand the service and improve maintenance with plans to have this rapid transit system around for decades to come.