two projects, and request $29 million for design work on the 63rd Street Connector. UMTA released $60 million in funds to complete the Archer Avenue and 63rd Street Lines on July 1, 1987. The MTA announced that they would open in December 1988 and October 1989, respectively. Opening and later use The line opened on December 11, 1988, at a cost of nearly five times its original budgeted cost and cut back to a length of . It consisted of the first stations added to the subway system since the 57th Street station opened in 1968, the first stations in the entire subway system to be designed for handicapped accessibility, and the first stations in Queens since the IND Rockaway Line opened in 1956. The project's final cost was $465 million. The line's opening was hailed as a catalyst in the redevelopment of Jamaica, ending the neighborhood's urban blight. A study completed in December 1988, before the line's opening, found that many riders getting to the stations in Jamaica used unregulated dollar vans to get there. It found that 20,000 people rode these vans on an average weekday to get to Jamaica subway stations along Hillside Avenue. In 2020, the MTA announced that it would reconstruct of track and of third rail on the IND Archer Avenue Line, which had become deteriorated. During the first phase of reconstruction, for six weeks between September 19 and November 2, E service was cut back to Jamaica–Van Wyck, with a shuttle bus connecting to Sutphin Boulevard and Jamaica Center. The second phase of the IND line's reconstruction was completed in December 2020. Two years later, the MTA announced it would reconstruct of track on the BMT Archer Avenue Line. Starting on July 1, 2022, J service was cut back to 121st Street, and Z service was temporarily discontinued. The work was planned to continue until September 2022. A shuttle bus, the J99, would run from 121st Street to Jamaica–Van Wyck for the duration of the work. Service plans The lower level was always intended for use by J/Z skip-stop service; however, there have been varying proposals for the services that were to serve the upper level. In the original service plan, the G and N local trains were to serve the Archer Avenue upper level, while the E and F express trains would have remained on the Queens Boulevard mainline towards 179th Street.