Metro Lázaro Cárdenas

Metro Lázaro Cárdenas serves the neighborhoods of Algarín, south of Obrera and Doctores and Buenos Aires. On Metro Line 9, it is a fairly exclusive station for locals. It also serves some of the northeastern neighborhoods of Benito Juarez. These are just below the city’s Viaducto highway, which is three blocks south of the station.

The station gets its name from Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas, i.e. Eje Central, one of the most important northbound streets in the city.

• The street, of course, is named after Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (1895-1970). As president from 1934 to 1940, Cárdenas remains famous for expropriating oil from foreign companies and nationalizing the entire industry. He also welcomed Spanish refugees fleeing the Civil War in Spain. This had a lasting effect on the 20th-century culture of the entire country.
• Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas, at the time of its creation, replaced the names of six other avenues, all running in the same place. The two best remembered were San Juan de Letrán and Niño Perdido Avenue, which ended here. The first part of the Eje Vial network (a system of numbering and organizing Mexico City’s arterial streets), it was opened in 1979.

A surprisingly bright station, although subterranean, it’s well lit during the day. Many passengers will exit Metro Lázaro Cárdenas to transfer to the trolleybus that travels up and down Eje Central. Parque de las Americas is a few blocks south and west, along Diagonal San Antonio, which ends here at the intersection with Eje Central.

Eje 3 Sur, the east-west avenue, is called here Dr. Ignacio Morones Prieto to the west of Eje Central, and José Peón Contreras to the east.