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.
Last modified: February 3, 2019