N.Y. Vehicle & Traffic Law § 1640: Traffic regulations in all cities and villages

§ 1640. Traffic regulations in all cities and villages. (a) The

legislative body of any city or village, with respect to highways (which

term for the purposes of this section shall include private roads open

to public motor vehicle traffic) in such city or village; subject to the

limitations imposed by section sixteen hundred eighty-four may by local

law, ordinance, order, rule or regulation:

1. Designate through highways and order stop signs, flashing signals

or yield signs erected at specified entrances thereto or designate any

intersection as a stop intersection or a yield intersection and order

like signs or signals at one or more entrances to such intersection.

2. Prohibit or regulate the turning of vehicles or specified types of

vehicles at intersections or other designated locations.

3. Regulate the crossing of any roadway by pedestrians.

4. Designate any highway or any separate roadway thereof for one-way

traffic.

5. Exclude trucks, commercial vehicles, tractors, tractor-trailer

combinations, tractor-semitrailer combinations, or

tractor-trailer-semitrailer combinations from highways specified by such

legislative body. Such exclusion shall not be construed to prevent the

delivery or pickup of merchandise or other property along the highways

from which such vehicles and combinations are otherwise excluded.

6. Prohibit, restrict or limit the stopping, standing or parking of

vehicles; provided, however, that a vehicle may not be found to be in

violation of a parking regulation if it is parked at a broken parking

meter at a time when metered parking is authorized.

7. Determine those highways or portions of highways which shall be

marked to indicate where overtaking and passing or driving to the left

of or crossing such markings would be especially hazardous in accordance

with the standards, minimum warrants and sign or marking specifications

established by the department of transportation.

8. Designate safety zones.

9. Provide for the installation, operation, maintenance, policing, and

supervision of parking meters, establish parking time limits at such

meters, designate hours of operation of such meters, and, except as

provided in section twelve hundred three-h of this chapter, fix and

require the payment of fees applicable to parking where such meters are

in operation. Such fees shall be paid to such city or village and

credited to its general fund, unless a different disposition prescribed

by local law or ordinance enacted prior to or after the effective date

of this section.

10. Establish a system of truck routes upon which all trucks,

tractors, and tractor-trailer combinations having a total gross weight

in excess of ten thousand pounds are permitted to travel and operate and

excluding such vehicles and combinations from all highways except those

which constitute such truck route system. Such exclusion shall not be

construed to prevent the delivery or pick up of merchandise or other

property along the highways from which such vehicles and combinations

are otherwise excluded. Any such system of truck routes shall provide

suitable connection with all state routes entering or leaving such city

or village.

11. Regulate traffic by means of traffic-control signals.

12. License, regulate or prohibit speed contests, races, exhibitions

of speed, processions, assemblages or parades. Whenever such a speed

contest, race, exhibition of speed, procession, assemblage or parade

authorized by a local authority will block the movement of traffic on a

state highway maintained by the state, or on a highway which connects

two state highways maintained by the state to make a through route, for

a period in excess of ten minutes, such authority must, prior to such

blocking, provide and designate with conspicuous signs a detour adequate

to prevent unreasonable delay in the movement of traffic on said highway

maintained by the state.

13. Prohibit or regulate the operation and the stopping, standing or

parking of vehicles in cemeteries and in public parks.

14. Provide for the removal and storage of vehicles parked or

abandoned on highways during snowstorms, floods, fires or other public

emergencies, or found unattended where they constitute an obstruction to

traffic or any place where stopping, standing or parking is prohibited,

and for the payment of reasonable charges for such removal and storage

by the owner or operator of any such vehicle.

15. Provide for the establishment, operation, policing and supervision

of a prepaid parking permit system, establishing parking time limits for

such permits and fix and require the payment of fees applicable to

parking where such a prepaid permit parking system is in operation. Such

fees shall be paid to the city of Albany and credited to its general

funds, unless a different disposition prescribed by local law is

enacted. A prepaid parking permit system may not be established at any

location at which parking is subject to a parking meter fee. The

provisions of this paragraph shall only be applicable for the city of

Albany.

16. Adopt such additional reasonable local laws, ordinances, orders,

rules and regulations with respect to traffic as local conditions may

require subject to the limitations contained in the various laws of this

state.

17. Make special provisions with relation to stopping, standing or

parking of vehicles registered pursuant to section four hundred four-a

of this chapter or those possessing a special vehicle identification

parking permit issued in accordance with section one thousand two

hundred three-a of this chapter.

18. Declare a snow emergency and designate any highway or portion

thereof as a snow emergency route.

19. Prohibit vehicles engaged in the retail sale of frozen desserts as

that term is defined in subdivision thirty-seven of section three

hundred seventy-five of this chapter directly to pedestrians from

stopping for the purpose of such sales on any highway within such city

or village, or on all such highways. Nothing herein shall be construed

to prohibit the operator of such vehicle from stopping such vehicle off

of such highway, in a safe manner, for the sole purpose of delivering

such retail product directly to the residence of a consumer or to the

business address of a customer of such retailer.

20. Exclude trucks, commercial vehicles, tractors, tractor-trailer

combinations, tractor-semitrailer combinations, or

tractor-trailer-semitrailer combinations in excess of any designated

weight, designated length, designated height, or eight feet in width,

from highways or set limits on hours of operation of such vehicles on

particular city or village highways or segments of such highways. Such

exclusion shall not be construed to prevent the delivery or pickup of

merchandise or other property along the highways from which such

vehicles or combinations are otherwise excluded.

21. Serve notice of a violation of any provision of local law or

ordinance relating to the prevention of noise pollution caused by an

audible motor vehicle burglar alarm and over which the city or village

has jurisdiction upon the owner of a motor vehicle by affixing such

notice to said vehicle in a conspicuous place.

22. Prohibit or regulate the stopping, standing and parking of

vehicles in designated areas reserved for public business at or adjacent

to a government facility.

(b) Such a legislative body also may by local law, ordinance, order,

rule or regulation prohibit, restrict or limit the stopping, standing or

parking of vehicles upon property owned or leased by such city or

village.

(c) Each such legislative body shall cause to be determined, for all

bridges and elevated structures under its jurisdiction, the capacity in

tons of two thousand pounds which the bridge or structure will safely

carry. At bridges or structures of insufficient strength to carry safely

the legal loads permissible by section three hundred eighty-five, the

legislative body of such city or village shall cause signs to be erected

to inform persons of the safe capacity.

(d) Each such legislative body of a city or a village shall cause

signs to be erected to inform persons of the legal overhead clearance

for all bridges and structures on highways under its jurisdiction. The

legal clearance shall be one foot less than the measured clearance. The

measured clearance shall be the minimum height to the bridge or

structure measured vertically from the traveled portion of the roadway.

On bridges or structures having fourteen feet or more of measured

clearance, no such signs shall be required.

(e) No legislative body of a city or a village shall enact any law

that prohibits the use of sidewalks by persons with disabilities who use

either a wheelchair or an electrically-driven mobility assistance device

being operated or driven by such person.