19.1 II. Definitions

• Jurisdiction: New York

II. DEFINITIONS

The passage of time brought with it a need for various types of specialized thoroughfares. The New York State Highway Law developed into a statutory scheme that is now divided generally into State Highways, County Roads and Town Highways. The cities and villages developed avenues, streets and alleys. Parkways, from which any form of commercial vehicular traffic was excluded, were created through extensive landscaped areas and were often placed under the authority or jurisdiction of various public authorities or cities. High-speed highways, known as thruways, expressways and limited access roads, connected the larger settled areas of the state and were created to speed the movement of commercial and industrial vehicles as well as passenger vehicular traffic. All these special purposes called for new bodies of statutory law.

The New York State Constitution includes the phrase “roads, highways [and] alleys.”³³¹² Notably, this provision does not include the word streets, which has been held to include municipal avenues and thoroughfares³³¹³ and sidewalks that are deemed portions of the public highways.³³¹⁴ Creating an anomalous statutory puzzle, the legislature treats the words highway and street as synonyms by defining them as “[t]he entire width between the boundary lines of every way publicly maintained when any part thereof is open” to public use for vehicular travel.³³¹⁵ Furthermore, it has been held that a parkway, although a toll road, is deemed a public highway.³³¹⁶

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Notes:

^[3312] . N.Y. Const. art. 3, § 17.

^[3313] . In re Burns, 155 N.Y. 23 (1898); In re Woolsey, 95 N.Y. 135 (1884).

^[3314] . N.Y. Vehicle & Traffic Law § 144 (Veh. & Traf. Law); Williams v. State, 34 A.D.2d 101, 309 N.Y.S.2d 795 (3d Dep’t 1970); Nikiel v. City of Buffalo, 7 Misc. 2d 667, 165 N.Y.S.2d 592 (Sup. Ct., Erie Co. 1957).

^[3315] . Veh. & Traf. Law §§ 118, 148; Bakery Salvage Corp. v. City of Lackawanna, 48 Misc. 2d 975, 265 N.Y.S.2d 471 (Sup. Ct., Erie Co. 1965), rev’d on other grounds, 30 A.D.2d 207, 291 N.Y.S.2d 104 (4th Dep’t 1968), aff’d, 24 N.Y.2d 643, 301 N.Y.S.2d 581 (1969).

^[3316] . People v. County of Westchester, 282 N.Y. 224 (1940).