Program For Action
Metropolitan Transportation: A Program for Action, also known as simply the Program for Action or the New Routes Program, was a proposal in the mid-1960s for a large expansion of mass transit in New York City, created under then-Mayor John Lindsay. It was one of the most ambitious expansion plans in the history of the New York City Subway, with 40 miles (64 km) of track miles to be added to the New York City Subway within Queens alone. The $2.9 billion plan also called for improvements to other modes of mass transit, such as the present-day Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, and further integration between mass transit and the New York City-area airport system.
Transport improvements built under the Program for Action were supposed to relieve overcrowding on existing transit modes in the New York City area. However, even though many of the lines and transport connections proposed in the Program for Action were approved, New York City nearly went bankrupt in 1975, causing all but two of these projects to be canceled due to a lack of funds. The remaining projects, the 63rd Street and Archer Avenue lines, were both dramatically truncated from their original lengths, and both lines opened much later than originally projected. In total, only six stations and 15 miles (24 km) of tracks were added under the Program for Action.
In the 1960s, the New York metropolitan area region had 18 million residents across 13,000 square miles (34,000 km2), and the area's population was expanding greatly at the time, especially in the suburbs, to where many city residents relocated. In 1965, the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority (MCTA) was created by New York State Legislature to operate the bankrupt Long Island Rail Road. In 1968, the MCTA absorbed the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA or TA) of New York City, and began a long-term lease of several lines of the Penn Central that would become the Metro-North Railroad. That year, US$600,000,000 (equivalent to $4,132,000,000 in 2016) was made available to the MCTA, as part of a $2.5 billion (equivalent to $17,218,000,000 in 2016) bond for transportation passed by the New York State legislature. In February of that same year, the MCTA published a 56-page report for New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, and in it, proposed several subway and railroad improvements under the name "Metropolitan Transportation, a Program for Action" (alternatively called "Grand Design"). Executives involved with the proposal included New York baseball executive William Shea. The Program for Action was put forward simultaneously with other development and transportation plans under the administration of Mayor John Lindsay. This included Lindsay's Linear City plan for housing and educational facilities, and the projected construction of several Interstate Highways, many of which were originally proposed by Robert Moses. Shortly after the release of the plans, on March 1, 1968 the MCTA became the MTA.
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