Feds fine N.Y. $14M in battle over tourist highway signs

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The state of New York stands to lose $14 million in federal funding as a result of a feud over the legality of the I Love New York signs that dot the state’s numerous highways.

In a letter to the New York State Thruway Authority and the state Department of Transportation Thursday, Brandye Hendrickson, acting administrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration,   said the state failed to comply with federal requirements.

“Because of the installation of more than 500 non-compliant signs and repeated notification to remove these installations, the FHWA will assess initial penalties for non-compliance effective immediately,” Hendrickson wrote. “The assessed penalties will be an initial reduction of 1 percent of fiscal year 2018 National Highway Performance Program and Surface Transportation Block Grant Program funding.”

That amounts to a $14 million penalty, Hendrickson wrote.

“If the state comes into compliance with the requirements mentioned above prior to Sept. 30, 2018, FHWA will reinstate the funds,” she wrote.

The dispute over the signs’ legality dates to 2014, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in his State of the State address plans to launch a “whole new signage campaign on our roads, promoting the assets of New York.”

The signage would include a path through history campaign, the I love New York attraction campaign and the taste of New York food and beverages.

“You will see these signs on the roads literally in the next few days,” Cuomo said in his address. “These campaigns link online to all those attractions in that particular area, all along the Thruway and all along major routes.”

The goal, Cuomo said at the time, was to get people off the roads and into communities to foster and promote the state’s economy.

But the FHWA said at the time the signs were illegal because they were not in compliance with the National Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices or the state’s Vehicle and Traffic Law, a point that Hendrickson noted in her letter yesterday.

“Motorist safety is always our primary objective,” Hendrickson wrote. “One of the Federal Highway Administration’s responsibilities in this area is to ensure safety by requiring consistent sign information across the country.”

The more than 500 signs erected across the state feature a main sign installation with four logos, followed closely by individual sign installations with one logo per sign. Hendrickson said because each sign is on large supports and structures, they create obstructions within the roadside environment that could pose safety risks.

Sen. Rich Funke, R-Perinton, said that’s laughable. The signs have been helpful and help sell tourism.

“Listen, tourism is a $64 billion industry in the state. Tourism last year in the Finger Lakes was up 15 percent. We don’t view these signs as dangerous,” Funke’s Chief of Staff, Matt Nelligan, said, speaking on behalf of the senator. “We think at the end of the day, it seems to me this is just maybe another shot in the war between the Cuomo administration and D.C. We don’t think the upstate tourism economy should be caught in the middle of that fight. Withholding $14 million in highway funding that could threaten to not allow us to do road and bridge maintenance we need, we don’t think that’s the right approach.”

Some local elected officials have expressed frustration toward Cuomo for installing the signs despite the issue of their legality.

“I am 100 percent in favor of advertising all the great things New York State has to offer, however, it is disappointing that due to the governor acting independently outside of federal regulations, we are missing out on important funding that could be used to help improve infrastructure upstate and make our roads safer for all New Yorkers,” said state Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, on Friday.

Assemblyman Joseph Errigo, R-Conesus, was less circumspect.

“Now, after the governor wasted $8 million to install signs, we’ll need to pay millions more to remove them or risk losing an additional $14 million in funding for our highways, which are in desperate need of more funding,” Errigo said in a statement. “If the governor had put his ego aside, adhered to federal highway rules and found some way to compromise before he disregarded the law, we could have avoided this embarrassing debacle in the first place.”

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