In 1958, the National Capital Commission (NCC) replaced the Federal District Commission. As a federal agency, the NCC worked along with the many individual municipal governments (before amalgamation in 2000) on the Ontario and Quebec sides in planning and designing the city. It acquired the lands for the Greenbelt and in the 1960s it removed the railway tracks from downtown, making rail travel less accessible, but also opening the Rideau Canal as a scenic tourist destination. The NCC continues to have a major role in planning and does have a long range plan for how to showcase the region as a national capital, but has limited legitimacy as an unelected bureaucracy.