Until 1924, municipal public transportation actions originated primarily from state-controlled agencies, including the 1891 and 1894 rapid transit boards, the PSC, and most recently the New York State Transit Commission which was created in March 1921. Following the creation of the State Transit Commission and the reelection of
Al Smith as
Governor of New York in 1922, then-mayor
John Francis Hylan and future mayors
Jimmy Walker (then a
state senator) and
John P. O'Brien (the city's corporation counsel) sought to establish a city-controlled transit commission. In 1924, the New York City Board of Transportation was created by the
New York City Board of Estimate following a bill passed by New York State Legislature. The Board of Transportation would responsible for mapping and constructing new rapid transit lines, carrying out the powers dictated in the 1891 Rapid Transit Act, while the State Transit Commission would continue to oversee the privately operated systems. The bill had been deadlocked in the State Assembly for two years until a compromise bill was introduced in February 1924 The board's first chairman was John Hanlon Delaney, one of Hylan's top advisers who had been the transit construction commissioner since 1919. The first IND subway line and the system's trunk line, the
IND Eighth Avenue Line, broke ground on March 14, 1925, and was opened on September 10, 1932. On August 29, 1929, the BOT released its first major plans for the expansion of the city-owned system still under construction. A revision of this proposal was released almost ten years later on July 5, 1939. These plans would later be called the
IND Second System, and would go largely unbuilt due to the
Great Depression and
World War II. The BOT proceeded to close the IRT-operated
Second and
Ninth Avenue elevated lines in Manhattan, and the BMT-operated
Third and Fifth Avenue elevateds in Brooklyn. On December 15, 1940, the IND's second Manhattan trunk line − the
IND Sixth Avenue Line − was completed. In 1941, the BOT began motorizing the former BMT streetcar lines in Brooklyn and Queens into diesel bus routes or trolley coach routes. Unification made the Board of Transportation the largest public transit operator in North America, in addition to being one of the few systems under public ownership at the time. On September 24, 1948, the BOT took over the East Side Omnibus Corporation and Comprehensive Omnibus Corporation in
Manhattan. At this time, the BOT resumed motorizing trolley lines, and proceeded to construct new
storage and repair facilities. It also purchased new buses, to either replace streetcars or the dilapidated buses inherited from private operators. == Decline ==