High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Arts on the Line was a program devised to bring art into the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)`s subway stations in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Arts on the Line was the first program of its kind in the United States and became the model for similar drives for art across the country. The first twenty artworks were completed in 1985 with a total cost of $695,000 USD, or one half of one percent of the total construction cost of the Red Line Northwest Extension, of which they were a part.