ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Gov. Kathy Hochul outlined her 2024 budget on Wednesday morning, New York’s Five-Year Capital Plan includes a focus on the Department of Transportation (DOT). Hochul’s Executive Budget projects funding for year two of a five-year, $32.8 billion DOT Capital Plan.
That plan uses federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to support infrastructure projects including:
- Hunts Point Interstate Access Improvement
- Replacement of I-81 in Syracuse
- Modernizing the Livingston Avenue Bridge in Albany
- Reconnecting neighborhoods across the Kensington
Expressway in Buffalo - Converting Route 17 to I-86 in Orange and Sullivan Counties
- Assessing possible road capacity improvements at the Oakdale Merge in
Suffolk County - BRIDGE NY program
- Pave Our Potholes (POP) program
- PAVE NY program
- Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS)
- Marchiselli program
This second year of the DOT Capital Plan is projected at almost $7 billion for highways, bridges, and rail. The Executive Budget provides $9.1 billion to support mass transit, with most headed for New York City. Upstate transit systems are slated to receive $287 million of that pie.
Aligning with the state’s Complete Streets agenda, a DOT pilot program will target the safety and mobility needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, and other non-motorized users. This proposal would grant as much as $1 million to each of the seven largest transit systems outside of New York City, while smaller statewide systems would compete for a piece of another $3 million.
The budget also includes legislation letting DOT impound vans, ambulettes, motor coaches, buses, or party buses that fail inspection and are placed out-of-service, extending the same authority the department has over stretch limos. What’s more, the budget seeks to amend the legal code by closing the so-called “DWI loophole.” Such an amendment would block anyone twice convicted of a DWI with a personal injury from being relicensed.
Hochul’s budget allows for funding the Metro Transit Authority and other New York City-centric transportation considerations. Among them, the budget lets the city lower its speed limit. To calm traffic, relieve congestion, and hopefully make driving safer, authorities can designate speed limits as low as 20 miles per hour—or even 10 miles per hour in school zones.
