S 3134: Requires the department of transportation to maintain a website or webpage where users may report defects on state highways and bridges.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 3134 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN SENATE January 23, 2025 ___________ 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 EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD01292-01-5 
 S. 3134 2 1 repairs reported shall be preserved for a minimum of three hundred 2 sixty-five days from the time of reporting or repair. 3 (d) The department may collect and report such additional information 4 and issues with respect to highway and bridge conditions and defects as 5 it deems necessary. 6 (e) The department shall also enable persons to report defects located 7 on the state thruway system on this interactive website and application, 8 and is authorized and directed to coordinate with the thruway authority 9 in creating or modifying the interactive website and application to 10 share, or enable the thruway authority to receive, reports of defects in 11 locations for which it is responsible no more than twenty-four hours 12 after the defect is reported. The department is authorized to provide 13 the thruway authority with joint access to maintain and monitor the 14 interactive website and application, and may enter into a cost-sharing 15 arrangement with the authority. 16 (f) To the extent practicable, the department shall communicate 17 defects reported to its interactive website and application on county 18 roads and town highways to the local official responsible for such road 19 or highway. The commissioner shall discuss any difficulties encountered 20 by such commissioner in implementing this paragraph during the joint 21 legislative budget hearing convened pursuant to article VII of the state 22 constitution and section thirty-one of the legislative law, beginning no 23 later than the hearing to be scheduled in calendar year two thousand 24 twenty-five. 25 (g) Nothing in this authorization shall preclude the department from 26 permitting defects unrelated to the road and highway network from being 27 reported to this website or application. 28 (h) Identifying information for the defect reporter shall be exempt 29 from the provisions of section eighty-seven of the public officers law, 30 and shall not be shared by the department or thruway authority or any 31 entity with whom the department or authority contracts in implementing 32 this legislation. 33 § 2. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after 34 it shall have become a law. Effective immediately, the addition, amend- 35 ment and/or repeal of any rule or regulation necessary for the implemen- 36 tation of this act on its effective date are authorized to be made and 37 completed on or before such effective date.