Regional governance timeline

Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. convened the Metropolitan Regional Conference, later known as the Metropolitan Regional Council. This voluntary association of the top elected officials of the counties and major cities of the tri-state region discussed shared problems such as regional traffic control and water and air pollution. New York City paid most of its $50,000-a-year cost.

The Transportation Act of 1958 expanded the Interstate Commerce Commission’s authority over railroad passenger-service discontinuances. The Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission warned that reliance on state regulators and courts could no longer assure continued commuter operations, while Senator Clifford P. Case later called for an investigation of the drive to abandon services.

Senator Walter H. Jones introduced a bill to create a Metropolitan Transit District with a 32-member council, 16 from each state, and $150,000 a year from each state for five years. An identical bill was introduced in the New York Legislature the same day. Any plan would need approval from both Legislatures.

The Metropolitan Regional Conference accepted a committee report opposing a separate interstate air-pollution agency and favoring action through the conference. Members also backed an area-wide warning system for dangerous air pollution and approved a joint recreation-facility inventory with the Regional Plan Association, extending cooperation beyond the rail crisis.

The Metropolitan Regional Conference postponed specific action on the proposed transit district after a Hunter College debate. A committee led by Jersey City Mayor Charles S. Witkowski had urged inclusion of Connecticut and coordination through the conference itself; members called for further study after transit director Frank H. Simon defended a district with statutory powers.

The Newark Citizens Committee on Municipal Government proposed that Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, Harrison and New York City create a North Jersey Transit Authority to purchase the bankrupt Hudson & Manhattan Railroad. Bonds backed by the five municipalities would finance acquisition and connections to the Jersey Central and New York subways; local officials differed over whether the Port Authority should instead take the responsibility.

Governor Harriman approved New York’s participation in the bi-state district. Mayor Wagner, as chairman of the Metropolitan Regional Council, had urged more study. “I do not believe we should wait for another year,” Harriman said. The district still needed New Jersey’s approval and ratification by Congress.

The council of elected officials voted unanimously to oppose the bill. The Times called it a “curious subversion of stated purpose.” The council’s secretary, Maxwell Lehman, answered that members wanted a tri-state approach that included Westchester and Fairfield from the start and did not separate transit from traffic, and that the council had authorized itself to draft a new measure.

The council’s Committee on Housing and Redevelopment started updating housing data last collated in 1950, when 10.2 percent of the region’s housing units were sub-standard, as part of a push for federal housing funds.

Governor-elect Nelson A. Rockefeller said he would seek an early meeting with Governors Meyner and Ribicoff. “Something has got to be done about transit and transportation before the end of the year,” he said. Meyner said he would be “delighted” to join, and that he was willing to amend the district bill to meet objections.

Port Authority executive director Austin J. Tobin argued for more than two hours that the Authority could not spend on transit and submitted a 46-page memorandum. The Assembly’s economist, Dr. Salomon J. Flink, countered in a 57-page report that the Authority could set aside earnings to cover part of a transit deficit. The commission’s co-chairmen asked for action; the Regional Council asked for a tri-state approach.

About 20 people attended a Newark hearing on how to tackle metropolitan problems; Newark was the only New Jersey municipality to send an official. The council, elected officials who had met informally for more than two years, was weighing whether to seek formal status, and a committee under Columbia’s Wallace Sayre was to report on January 13.

Jersey City Mayor Witkowski, who had led the council’s opposition to the district, called its traffic and transportation committee together: “Having played a large role in the defeat of the transit district, I feel it is up to the regional council to offer constructive plans.” Senator Clifford P. Case called for a Senate investigation of efforts to rid railroads of commuter service.

A Regional Plan Association committee of eight headed by Columbia’s Wallace S. Sayre urged that the voluntary council be established by identical statutes in the three states and a compact approved by Congress, with a small full-time secretariat. “The present mass transportation crisis,” it said, “is but a foretaste of the difficulties which will soon and increasingly press upon the region.”

The Metropolitan Regional Council proposed an agency representing the three states, New York City and the council to channel public grants and loans to commuter railroads. It would determine operating deficits, apportion support and plan improvements or integration of facilities. Connecticut Governor Abraham Ribicoff endorsed the proposal and suggested creating the agency through gubernatorial action while his legislature was out of session; Governor Robert Meyner promised consideration.

The association endorsed the Metropolitan Regional Council’s effort, through Mayor Wagner, to establish an agency representing the three states, New York City, and the council. It said the bi-state agency, “while in being is not yet in operation,” could be enlarged or replaced, and urged applying for federal highway planning funds for a comprehensive study.

Walter Binger told the Metropolitan Regional Council that preserving commuter rail would require about $800 million over ten years, largely from federal support. His proposed action agency would channel subsidies through service contracts and purchase standardized equipment in bulk. He said an expanded bi-state agency or Port Authority could perform the role alongside Tri-State’s planning work. Rockland officials pressed for restoring West Shore passenger service.

Meeting in Asbury Park, the Metropolitan Regional Council added safeguards requested by New Jersey’s attorney general to its proposed membership agreement. They included state access to records and testimony, a nonvoting state representative, rules for borrowed staff and the precedence of state law. The changes cleared an obstacle to New Jersey participation in a permanent council. Delegates also urged a stronger three-state agency to contract for essential passenger-rail service.

As the council sought formal membership agreements, the Westchester Board of Supervisors voted 26 to 7 against joining and Suffolk also refused. The council’s secretary said “hate literature” was being circulated. Mayor Wagner and Westchester’s county executive defended it as a voluntary agency; the latter said, “If it weren’t for the council, New Haven Railroad probably wouldn’t be operating today.”

At a joint Senate–House subcommittee hearing in New York, Arthur M. Cromarty of Suffolk County called himself “an outspoken foe of the Metropolitan Regional Council,” and two New Jersey county officials warned of a weakening of home rule. About 50 opponents from New Jersey counties attended.

After “several years of desuetude” and the defection of suburban members, the council had eight committees at work and a budget of $80,000, half from New York City, and had applied for a $210,000 federal grant. Its goal was to enlist every county and city in the region as a dues-paying member.

Tri-State’s intergovernmental committee endorsed a partial merger with the Metropolitan Regional Council. Commissioner Frank Johnson proposed a new division to assist local governments, while the council would retain its television network and become an official advisory committee, an attempt to strengthen local participation without combining the organizations’ incompatible legal structures.

The Tri-State Regional Planning Commission, which supplied about half the Metropolitan Regional Council’s $500,000 budget, voted to end its support and continue payments only month to month. The council by then spent most of its effort on a closed-circuit television network linking local officials.

The commission declined for a third meeting to explain how it approved Westway against its own plan. Connecticut passed laws letting towns petition to leave its jurisdiction, and the three governors appointed a 15-member task force. Of more than 2,500 Town Meeting participants, 98 percent wanted regional decision-making imposed on the splintered transportation agencies.

The council, the region’s only association of local governments, discontinued operation after losing its Tri-State funding. Its planning director wrote that “the voice of local government in this complex region of ours has been effectively silenced by governmental appointees.”