Skip to main content

DOT apparently means to rain on your community's parade

By Howard B. Owens

Nearly every city, village, town and even most hamlets in Upstate New York hold at least one parade a year.

It might be for Memorial Day or some local observance or festival, but parades in the state's rural counties are as common as apples and corn.

New Department of Transportation rules could doom one of the state's last vestiges of public Americana.

Legislator Shelly Stein informed the Public Service Committee today of a proposed new law that would require parade organizers to file a five-page application, pay hefty deposits and jump through dozens of bureaucratic hoops to get permission for a parade on a state highway.

For example, the Oakta Festival Parade, which Stein chairs, takes place on Route 5 every year. The City's parades for Memorial Day and St. Joe's Penny Carnival are also on Route 5. Oakfield's Labor Day Parade is on Route 63. Byron's parade is on Route 262. In Bergen, the parade crosses Route 19.

"This has always been a municipality's prerogative," noted Legislator Marianne Clattenburg, a former City of Batavia council member. "Every time a parade or festival took place, it always got approval through the city and the council voted. So why is this now being taken out of local control?"

Stein and other legislators suspect it's about money. The new law requires a deposit sufficient to cover any potential damage to state property, which the state will fix and deduct from the deposit.

It could just be bureaucracy.

The list of new requirements include:

  • Demonstrate that a licensed traffic engineer has reviewed the operation and safety plan;
  • Identify every location and every way where participants will violate normal traffic laws;
  • Show how the event will affect normal traffic and how measures taken to minimize conflicts;
  • Identify all temporary traffic control devices that will be placed in the highway;
  • Demonstrate that there is a plan for addressing injured participants;
  • Demonstrate that the owners of facilities used by the event have been contacted and agree with the use;
  • Prepare an event map that shows start and finish lines, show direction of event, show all intersections, show railroad crossings, show jurisdictional boundaries and show facilities being used (roads, parks, schools, parking lots, etc.);
  • Write a detailed description of the event;
  • List all existing traffic control signs;
  • Prepare sketches of all locations that require additional traffic control devices;
  • Show on a map all locations of traffic control personnel;
  • Provide a map of detours with a drawing of proposed detour signs;
  • Detail pre-event public notifications;
  • Describe pre-event coordination with local police or state police and other agencies;
  • and, describe event-day communications systems.

The changes also apply to 5K races, bike races and other public events that use state highways.

The proposed changes are not law yet. Currently, the DOT is accepting public comment on the proposed new rules. The DOT can be contacted at NYSDOT Main Office, 50 Wolf Road, Albany, NY 12232.

Stein shared a comment about the proposed changes by Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer. She said, Ranzenhofer told her, "I really don't see this going too far because we all walk in parades."

But, Stein said, without public feedback, the new law could go into effect, making it much harder for local communities to host their traditional parades and other public events.

Mark Potwora

Who told who to come up with these new regulations.DOT can't maintain the roads and bridges as it is.And now they want to tell every town or parade sponsor that has a parade to jump thru all the above BS.Is this another unfunded mandate..Just another overreaching example of New York State government at work..DOT should be having open meetings for public comment not have us send a comment to them...Just when you thought you heard it all...

Apr 16, 2013, 12:49am Permalink
Robert Brown

And in Cuomo's public ads (which I assume are paid for by taxpayer dollars), New York is getting better! Yep, this is better. Apparently more long distance control means better. Stop it already!

Apr 16, 2013, 12:59am Permalink
Dave Olsen

I think Ranzenhofer has a point. What would a Senator do all summer if there weren't any parades?

That doesn't mean don't call or write him, Steve Hawley and the DOT if you don't like this proposal.

Apr 16, 2013, 6:33am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

I don't think this is anything that goes before the legislature or the governor. It's a DOT regulation that is under consideration. The DOT will decide whether and how to implement it.

Apr 16, 2013, 7:49am Permalink
Thomas Schneider

This is a rules change not a law. The agencies of this state continue to rule by fiat. This change will not be voted on by our representatives, the same as the open burn rules were never voted on by the legislature. If it hasn't been voted on by the peoples representatives, however dysfunctional they are, then I consider it to be null and void. Just have the parades anyway. Noncompliance used to be the American way, maybe it should be so again.

Apr 16, 2013, 7:50am Permalink
Kyle Couchman

I have to say I agree with Thomas. Just have them anyway, the DOT has been so hard pressed to do their job that they have absolutely no way of fufilling their obligatory part of this rule change. How much damage can a 5 k race do to a roadway, compared to just one of their work trucks going from hotpatch hole to hotpatch hole.
I suspect the real reson for this is some area supervisors want an excuse on HOT days to be in the air conditioned office going over applications, vs being out on the road supervising work projects.

Apr 16, 2013, 8:20am Permalink
Mark Brudz

Bureaucracy = job justification

And in my view that is exactly what we are seeing here. This is however, just the tip of the iceberg, let's review.

NYC, has essentially made table salt illegal under the guise of public safety, not to mention they assume the right to tell you what sized soft drink you can purchase at Burger King.

Since January, the EPA alone has implemented over 6500 new regulations.

The 2500 page healthcare law has manifested into over 25,000 pages of regulations and is not even in full force yet.

The IRS is using an outdated law to subpoena emails and reading them not only without warrants, but without the knowledge of the email address holder by issuing the subpoena directly to ISP's
http://rt.com/usa/irs-private-emails-no-warrant-656/

We have over the last 100 years allowed the Government to grow from one that serves the needs of the people, to a top down bureaucracy that tells people what they need.

For political gain, politicians pass laws in reaction to events which enable bureaucrats to entrench themselves and empower themselves to control almost every facet of our lives.

And then there is the slight of hand, get us all following well orchestrated pseudo-debates like let's tax the rich, tax fairness, gun control, class envy, etc., etc, all the while bureaucrats knowing that with each debate a series of new regulations are spawned further empowering them and further limiting our day to day lives.

When we allow government from the Top Down all that we do is hand off community responsibility to omnipotent governance at the expense of simple liberties like having a parade to celebrate a communities unity'

Sound like a rant, well it probably is, but at it's root is an observation that Government is like a virus spreading through the arteries and veins of our daily lives.

Apr 16, 2013, 9:44am Permalink
Dave Olsen

Not a rant Mark. Just a statement of the facts. And everything you wrote is fact, I challenge anyone to disagree that our taxes are so high and every little damn thing that involves government is complicated, because of self-serving bureaucratic solutions to problems, that really wouldn't be problems if we had to solve them ourselves. Like walking a parade route and identifying safety issues and making sure there is a viable detour before blocking off a street. Seriously, do we need a licensed traffic engineer for that? What it is is insulting.

Apr 16, 2013, 9:57am Permalink
Mark Potwora

They never seem to put a face or name to the creators of these BS regulations..Mark your first statement is so right on.......Bureaucracy = job justification..No one ever seems to be accountable for creating these rules they want us all to accept and live by..Bottom up government is the answer..Us citizens being the bottom.

Apr 16, 2013, 11:22am Permalink
Jeffrey Houseknecht

I'm sure none of this will apply to Cuomo's or Schumers group of cronies shutting down streets so they can stand in front of a camera

Apr 16, 2013, 11:36am Permalink
Brian Graz

I truly believe that NYS continues it's ever increasing assault on more and more aspects of our lives here within the state, because they know that it creates something of a distraction for those of us who care, but seem to not be able to do anything to stop the infringements. We're too busy [preoccupied] just trying to keep up with all of the BS and engage in the debates, and usually accomplish little or nothing... because as T Schneider said already, "the agencies of this state continue to rule by fiat", there is no direct representative oversight or redress. Rather than simply packing up our stuff and moving south like the smart folks do... In fact I spend way too much time just contemplating why I am still a New Yorker?

Apr 16, 2013, 1:13pm Permalink

Authentically Local