List of New York City Subway stations in Queens  The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system that serves four of the five boroughs of New York City in the U.S. state of New York: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Operated by the New York City Transit Authority under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York, the New York City Subway is the busiest rapid transit system in the United States and the seventh busiest in the world, with 5.225 million daily riders. The system's stations qualifies it to have the largest number of rapid transit stations in the world. Three rapid transit companies merged in 1940 to create the present New York City Subway system: the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), and the Independent Subway System (IND). All three former systems are present in Queens. Until 1915 most rapid transit in Queens consisted of streetcars, primarily those owned by affiliates of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, but some included trolleys owned by the Long Island Consolidated Electrical Companies, a holding company co-owned by the Long Island Rail Road and Interborough Rapid Transit Company. Some steam dummy lines also entered Queens from Brooklyn, most notably the Atlantic Avenue Rapid Transit lines along the Atlantic Branch and part of the Main Line of the Long Island Rail Road. As far back as 1885, proposals existed for a tunnel between Midtown Manhattan and Long Island City designed to connect the Long Island Rail Road and the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad with a trolley line. Construction hazards, economic despair, and the transfer of ownership of this project delayed completion of the tunnel. This tunnel would eventually be known as the Steinway Tunnel. The oldest subway line in Queens is the BMT Myrtle Avenue Line which was extended from Brooklyn into Ridgewood and Middle Village, replacing a steam dummy line. This was followed by the IRT Flushing Line, which had only one station in Long Island City, until it was extended with Dual Contracts to Astoria in 1916, Corona on April 21, 1917, and Downtown Flushing on January 2, 1928. The BMT Fulton Street Line extended from the City Line section of Brooklyn into Ozone Park and Richmond Hill on September 25, 1915. The same dual contracts project that brought about the extension of the IRT Flushing Line also lead to the opening of the BMT Astoria Line on February 1, 1917, as well as a connecting spur from the IRT Second Avenue Line over the Queensboro Bridge on July 23, 1917.