STATE OF NEW YORK
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9497
IN SENATE
May 16, 2024
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Introduced by Sens. COONEY, HARCKHAM -- read twice and ordered printed,
and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Transportation
AN ACT to amend the transportation law, in relation to requiring the
department of transportation to maintain a website or webpage where
users may report defects on state highways and bridges
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Section 14 of the transportation law is amended by adding a
2 new subdivision 37 to read as follows:
3 37. (a) The department shall maintain a toll-free twenty-four hour
4 defect-reporting hotline and shall develop and make available a website,
5 or develop and make available a page on its website:
6 (i) providing an opportunity for website users to report defects on
7 state highways and bridges, as well as any other arteries within the
8 department's jurisdiction; and
9 (ii) providing a web mapping service application displaying the
10 locations of the reported defects and any departmental actions respond-
11 ing to and remedying the reported defects. Mapping service applications
12 shall include any additional information the department deems necessary.
13 (b) The website shall (i) make provision for each defect reporter to
14 provide their name, as well as an electronic mail address or telephone
15 number at which the reporter can be contacted by the department with
16 updates on the defect reported, though anonymous reporting shall also be
17 permitted;
18 (ii) track and preserve defects reported in list and map format; and
19 (iii) provide an option for reporting of region- and highway-wide
20 defects as well as specific defects along more particularized locations,
21 including, without limitation, mile markers.
22 (c) The listing and map shall be updated no less than once every five
23 days to reflect any defects reported and repairs made. Defects and
24 repairs reported shall be preserved for a minimum of three hundred
25 sixty-five days from the time of reporting or repair.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD05971-04-4
S. 9497 2
1 (d) The department may collect and report such additional information
2 and issues with respect to highway and bridge conditions and defects as
3 it deems necessary.
4 (e) The department shall also enable persons to report defects located
5 on the state thruway system on this interactive website and application,
6 and is authorized and directed to coordinate with the thruway authority
7 in creating or modifying the interactive website and application to
8 share, or enable the thruway authority to receive, reports of defects in
9 locations for which it is responsible no more than twenty-four hours
10 after the defect is reported. The department is authorized to provide
11 the thruway authority with joint access to maintain and monitor the
12 interactive website and application, and may enter into a cost-sharing
13 arrangement with the authority.
14 (f) To the extent practicable, the department shall communicate
15 defects reported to its interactive website and application on county
16 roads and town highways to the local official responsible for such road
17 or highway. The commissioner shall discuss any difficulties encountered
18 by such commissioner in implementing this paragraph during the joint
19 legislative budget hearing convened pursuant to article VII of the state
20 constitution and section thirty-one of the legislative law, beginning no
21 later than the hearing to be scheduled in calendar year two thousand
22 twenty-five.
23 (g) Nothing in this authorization shall preclude the department from
24 permitting defects unrelated to the road and highway network from being
25 reported to this website or application.
26 (h) Identifying information for the defect reporter shall be exempt
27 from the provisions of section eighty-seven of the public officers law,
28 and shall not be shared by the department or thruway authority or any
29 entity with whom the department or authority contracts in implementing
30 this legislation.
31 § 2. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after
32 it shall have become a law. Effective immediately, the addition, amend-
33 ment and/or repeal of any rule or regulation necessary for the implemen-
34 tation of this act on its effective date are authorized to be made and
35 completed on or before such effective date.
