Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Metropolitan Transportation Authority

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) provides local and express bus, subway, and regional rail service in Greater New York, and operates multiple toll bridges and tunnels in New York City.
Overview
Locale	New York City Long Island Lower Hudson Valley Coastal Connecticut
Transit type	Commuter rail, local and express bus, subway, bus rapid transit
Number of lines	16 commuter rail routes 5 Metro-North routes 11 LIRR routes 25 rapid transit routes 25 subway routes 1 Staten Island Railway route 310 bus routes 238 local routes 62 express routes 13 Select Bus Service routes
Daily ridership	8,658,764 (weekday; all modes) MTA Long Island Rail Road MTA Metro-North Railroad MTA New York City Subway MTA Regional Bus Operations MTA Bus MTA New York City Bus MTA Staten Island Railway
Chief executive	Thomas F. Prendergast (CEO & Chairman)
Headquarters	2 Broadway, New York, NY 10004
Website	mta.info
Operation
Began operation	1965
Number of vehicles	2,352 commuter rail cars 6,407 63 SIR cars 5,777 buses

8,658,764 (weekday; all modes)

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the U.S. state of New York, serving 12 counties in Downstate New York, along with two counties in southwestern Connecticut under contract to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, carrying over 11 million passengers on an average weekday systemwide, and over 800,000 vehicles on its seven toll bridges and two tunnels per weekday. MTA is the largest public transit authority in the United States.

Chartered by the New York State Legislature in 1965 as the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority (MCTA), it was initially created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller to purchase and operate the bankrupt Long Island Rail Road. The MCTA dropped the word "Commuter" from its name and became the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on March 1, 1968 when it took over operations of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) (now MTA New York City Transit (NYCT)) and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) (now MTA Bridges and Tunnels (B&T)). The construction of two bridges over the Long Island Sound was put under the jurisdiction of the MTA.

The agency also entered into a long-term lease of the Penn Central Transportation's Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven commuter rail lines, contracting their subsidized operation to Penn Central, until that company's operations were folded into Conrail in 1976. The MTA took over full operations in 1983, as the Metro-North Commuter Railroad. Governor Rockefeller appointed his top aide, Dr. William J. Ronan, as chairman and chief executive officer. Dr. Ronan served in this post until 1974.