"The New York Times" reported that the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel was still under construction by 1976, even though it would remain unused indefinitely. Richard Ravitch, the MTA chairman, said that to stop the work was "so costly as to make it impractical subsequent to the construction of the subway portion." Therefore, the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel was completed along with the upper subway level, but could not be used due to its lack of connections at both ends. In 1979, the MTA started studying four options for making the upper level of the tunnel more useful. The ultimately agreed-on plan was to connect the tunnel to the local tracks of the IND Queens Boulevard Line in Queens, at a cost of $222 million, and a timetable of at least eight years.