§ 300. Legislative policy and purposes. It is hereby declared to be
the policy of the state to encourage and bring about the rehabilitation,
improvement, and continued operation by private enterprise of the
facilities of any domestic railroad corporation which now or hereafter
is a debtor in proceedings under the bankruptcy laws of the United
States and which in the calendar year preceding the institution of such
proceedings had passenger miles within the state of five hundred million
or more, and to encourage and bring about the rehabilitation of such
corporations in order to enable them, with private capital and under
private management, to furnish safe, efficient, and adequate
transportation service to the people of the state; and it is hereby
further found and declared that the rehabilitation and continued
operation of such corporations by private enterprise and enabling such
bankruptcy proceedings to be terminated are matters of public concern;
that it is necessary to create, with adequate safeguards, inducements
and opportunities for the employment of private investment in such
rehabilitation and continued operation; that a railroad redevelopment
corporation qualifying hereunder serves a public purpose; that provision
must be made for the granting of partial tax exemption to such
corporations; that the commissioner of transportation and any other
state agency empowered to act under section three hundred three are
hereby declared to be the agencies and instrumentalities of the state to
carry out the policy and purposes herein recited; and the necessity in
the public interest for the provisions of this article is hereby
declared as a matter of legislative determination.