Senate Bill S466

                                
 
BILL NUMBER: S466

SPONSOR: HOYLMAN
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the vehicle and traffic law, in
relation to providing that in a city of one million or more flashing
purple lights may be affixed to and displayed on buses operated on a bus
rapid transit route

 
PURPOSE:

To permit the use of flashing purple lights on Metropolitan Transporta-
tion Authority (MTA) or New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) buses
that are used on the Select Bus Service (SBS) Routes with off-board fare
collection.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1: Amends subdivision 41 of section 375 of the Vehicle and Traf-
fic Law to add a new subparagraph 1-a so that MTA and NYCTA buses that
are used on SBS Routes are permitted to use flashing purple lights when
running along Select Bus Service Routes.
              

 
JUSTIFICATION:

The Authorities' buses utilized on the SBS Routes had previously
utilized flashing blue lights to signal their approach to passengers.
However, under the current law, blue lights are only authorized for use
by volunteer firefighters and EMTs on their vehicles. Although almost
all of fire and EMT emergency services in New York City are paid profes-
sional emergency responders, not volunteer, in the interest of avoiding
confusion with emergency vehicles, even relatively rare volunteer vehi-
cles, buses on SBS Routes should be authorized to use flashing purple
lights, which is a color not used by any emergency vehicle under VTL
section 375(41).

In addition, emergency vehicles are easy to distinguish from buses, so
the use of different colored lights does not substantially lend towards
mistaking one type of vehicle for another. Without the flashing purple
lights, passengers cannot easily tell when a SBS bus is coming. This is
critical for passengers boarding at stops that serve both the SBS bus
and the local bus, or are nearby. At such stops, which are common to all
SBS routes, passengers have the option of purchasing their ticket from
the sidewalk ticket vending machine, which is needed to board an SBS
bus, or using a MetroCard or exact change to board a local bus. Passen-
gers at these locations must be able to distinguish well in advance
which bus is approaching in order to exercise one or the other option in
time to board the arriving bus.

The flashing purple lights provide the necessary advance notice for bus
patrons. The absence of flashing purple lights on buses on SBS Routes
makes the commute for passengers less convenient and unnecessarily
stressful. This bill would allow the use of flashing purple lights on
buses that are on the SBS Routes that are owned and operated by the MTA
or NYCTA, thereby remedying the problem.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

S.22 of 2017-2018 (Hoylman): Died in Transportation

S.53 of 2015-2016 (Hoylman): Died in Transportation (2015)/Died in Rules
(2016)
A.6375 (Quart): Died in Transportation
S.7068 of 2014 (Hoylman): Died in Transportation
A.6076-C of 2013-2014 (Kellner): Died in Transportation

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.