Tri-State Transportation Committee Scrapbook

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: MG NWK TTC-(Main)

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This scrapbook contains clippings of newspaper articles about the Tri-State Transportation Committee, mostly from New Jersey newspapers including the Newark News , Newark Star Ledger , Morris County Daily Record, and Daily Home News, with a smaller number of articles from the New York Times. The bulk of the articles date between 1963 and 1964 and chronicle public debate about New Jersey’s participation in the Committee. Many articles address the opposition to ratifying the Tri-State Transportation Compact bill within the state legislature due to concerns about the scope of the Committee’s powers, equal representation for New Jersey and possible impacts on local control over transportation (the state eventually approved the bill in 1965). A smaller number of articles concern general regional transportation news such as federal funding for public transportation, state highway construction and the creation of transportation districts in other states. The scrapbook consists of 95 pages, some passages in articles were underlined, presumably by the compiler of the scrapbook. It begins with a letter addressed to Ernest Erber, the area director of the Regional Plan Association’s (RPA) New Jersey office based in Newark. The RPA is a non-profit civic organization founded in 1922 that researches urban planning, land use and quality of life in the New York metropolitan region; it collaborated on planning studies with the Tri-State Transportation Committee during the 1960s.

Dates

1962 - 1964
Majority of material found within 1963 - 1964

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers wishing to publish, reproduce, or reprint materials from this collection must obtain permission.

Biographical / Historical

The Tri-State Transportation Committee was established by the governors of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York in 1961 to address long-range transportation planning needs across the region. Consisting of representatives from all three states, the committee conducted surveys of commuters, commissioned planning studies and submitted recommendations to the state legislatures. The organization also obtained federal funding for “experimental” transit projects such as new bus services and free commuter parking lots. The temporary committee was formally chartered by the state legislatures as the Tri-State Transportation Commission in 1965 following approval by the New Jersey legislature, and was renamed the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission in 1971. The Commission was disbanded in 1982 and succeeded by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority as the federally authorized metropolitan planning organization for the northern New Jersey region.