NIn 1898, New York, Kings and Richmond Counties, and part of Queens and Westchester Counties were integrated into the City of Greater New York. Due to the expanded size, New York City wanted to build underground subway as the core of the future transit. To meet the demand for the rapid transit, Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) began to build the first subway line in 1900, even though there was a great deal of opposition. Once begun the New York City subway eventually became the largest American system. On October 27, 1904 New York City's subway system officially inaugurated and provided much more convenient and faster transportation than trolleys and elevated trains. New York City Mayor George McClellan was in charge of planning the construction of efficient and innovative subway system. Around that time, the typical tunnel construction method was cut-and-cover. In this method, the street is torn up, which leaves easy digging of soft dirt and gravel near the street surface. Once constructed, the rail system is covered over, making a tunnel and, therefore a subway. Later projects used tunnel boring machines to build the subway tunnels through bedrock to minimize disruption at street level and to avoid disrupting existing utilities. The first line was operated by the IRT, which by that time ran the elevated lines in Manhattan with less than 4 years' of construction. The IRT opened the line and carried more than 100,000 riders on its opening day, charging a nickel each. It traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations, running from City Hall in lower Manhattan to Grand Central Terminal in midtown, and heading west along 42nd Street to Time Square, reaching up to 145th Street and Broadway in Harlem. To boost the growth, the city established the "Dual System" by dividing contracts with two companies, Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). The IRT expanded the existing lines to the Bronx in 1905, to Brooklyn in 1908 and to Queens in 1915 and BMT constructed new lines in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. More lines were designed by the Independent Subway System (IND) in the 1930s, merging the same route of many older elevated trains into subway lines. The Fulton Center in lower Manhattan re-opened in November 2014 under the reconstruction project ensued by the September 11, 2001 attack and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and became the largest New York City Subway center. Currently, Second Avenue Subway on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and 7 Subway Extension to the west side of Manhattan is on the process. In 1940 the three companies became unified under public ownership and in 1953 New York City Transit was created by the New York State Legislature. In 1968 it became the part of the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) and now it operates 26 lines, a total of 842 miles (1,355 km) and 468 stations.