Kraainem/Crainhem is a Brussels metro station in the municipality of Woluwe-St.-Lambert/St.-Lambrechts-Woluwe, Brussels. Since 4 April 2009 the station has been served by Metro line 1 (previously line 1B).
It is located near the intersection of the Wezembeeklaan (fr: Avenue de Wezembeek), Mounierlaan (Avenue Mounier), and Kraainemlaan (Avenue de Kraainem). It has a large park-and-ride lot and is also the terminus for a number of inbound regional bus routes of De Lijn as well as for the STIB/MIVB bus routes 30 and 31.
The station was inaugurated in 1988 with the extension of the Eastern branch of line 1B from Alma to Stockel/Stokkel. Due to its location in a park-and-ride lot, it is one of the few Brussels Metro stations that has its own station building on the surface (most other stations having only an underground mezzanine).
Originally, the station was just called Kraainem, using only Dutch spelling, as it was technically named after the Kraainemlaan (fr: Avenue de Kraainem) (a road using Dutch spelling for both its Dutch and French names), not after the nearby municipality (Dutch: gemeente, French: commune) of Kraainem. However, French speakers in the Brussels community quickly protested against what they regarded as a violation of bilingual language facilities and insisted that the French form Crainhem be added to the name of the station.
Thus the station is today usually held to be named after the municipality of Kraainem, even though it is not actually located on its territory.
Famous quotes containing the word station:
“It was evident that the same foolish respect was not here claimed for mere wealth and station that is in many parts of New England; yet some of them were the “first people,” as they are called, of the various towns through which we passed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)