during peak hours. NYSDOT contemplated restricting the lanes to passenger vehicles with at least three occupants but ultimately decided against this change. History I-495 was constructed in stages from 1940 to 1972. Its completion was intended to alleviate congestion along local roads in Long Island. Most of the highway in Queens was built as part of the Interstate Highway System, with 90 percent funding from the federal government and 10 percent from the New York state government. The portion of the highway in Nassau and Suffolk counties was built with equal funding from the federal and state governments. Construction of Queens segment Queens–Midtown Expressway The first piece of what is now I-495, the Queens–Midtown Tunnel linking Manhattan and Queens, was opened to traffic on November 15, 1940. The highway connecting the tunnel to Laurel Hill Boulevard was built around the same time and named the "Midtown Highway". The tunnel, the Midtown Highway, and the segment of Laurel Hill Boulevard between the highway and Queens Boulevard all became part of a realigned NY 24 in the mid-1940s. Parts of this highway were built on the right-of-way of a streetcar line that extended from Hunters Point to southern Flushing. In the 1940s, city planner Robert Moses proposed the construction of a system of highways that would traverse the New York City area. The plan was to cost $800 million (equivalent to $ in ), and, in February 1945, the city agreed to pay $60 million (equivalent to $ in ) of that cost. That November, the city, state, and federal governments agreed to fund several new highways in New York City. Among these was the Queens Midtown Expressway, which was to cost $10.62 million (equivalent to $ in ). Plans did not proceed further until March 1951, when Moses proposed constructing the six-lane Queens–Midtown Expressway between Laurel Hill and Queens boulevards. This was part of a larger, $30-million (equivalent to $ in ) plan that also included the Horace Harding Expressway. By October 1952, the cost of the two projects had increased to $55 million (equivalent to $ in ), of which the Queens–Midtown Expressway was to cost $21 million (equivalent to $ in ). To help fund the Queens–Midtown Expressway, Moses reallocated funding from two other highway projects in early 1953. That October, the New York City Planning Commission approved a minor revision to the Queens–Midtown Expressway's route in Maspeth and