Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia set up a public-works authority in February 1935 so the city could apply for loans from the federal Public Works Administration (PWA). This authority was set to receive $60 million in funds for the Brooklyn-Manhattan tunnel. The same month, city officials hired temporary workers to survey sites for the proposed tunnel, so that they could create a report for the PWA application. Civic groups and Brooklyn politicians petitioned the city to commence construction immediately so traffic congestion could be reduced. However, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had stipulated that PWA funding only be given to projects that could be finished within a year of the grant being awarded. Since the Brooklyn-Manhattan tunnel project would take longer, it and other New York City highway projects were ineligible for PWA funding.