The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) is the agency of the

government of New York City The government of New York City, headquartered at New York City Hall in Lower Manhattan, is organized under the New York City Charter and provides for a mayor-council system. The mayor is elected to a four-year term and is responsible for the ...

responsible for the management of much of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

's transportation infrastructure. Ydanis Rodriguez is the Commissioner of the Department of Transportation, and was appointed by Mayor

Eric Adams Eric Leroy Adams (born September 1, 1960) is an American politician and retired police captain serving as the 110th mayor of New York City since January 1, 2022. Adams was an officer in the New York City Transit Police and then the New York C ...

on January 1, 2022. Former Commissioners have included

Polly Trottenberg Polly Ellen Trottenberg (born March 16, 1964) is an American politician and government official who is serving as Deputy Secretary of Transportation under Pete Buttigieg since April 14, 2021. She previously served as commissioner of the New York ...

Janette Sadik-Khan Janette Sadik-Khan (born April 28, 1961) is a former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (2007–2013) and an advisor on transportation and urban issues. She works for Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consultancy es ...

, and

Iris Weinshall Iris Weinshall (born September 5, 1953) is the chief operating officer of The New York Public Library,Pogrebin, RobiWeinshall to Become New York Public Library’s Chief Operating Officer/ref> former vice chancellor at the City University of New ...

Responsibilities

The Department of Transportation's responsibilities include day-to-day maintenance of the city's streets, highways, bridges, sidewalks, street signs, traffic signals, and street lights. DOT supervises street resurfacing, pothole repair, parking meter installation and maintenance, and municipal parking facility management. DOT also operates the

Staten Island Ferry The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry route operated by the New York City Department of Transportation. The ferry's single route runs through New York Harbor between the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island, with ferry ...

. DOT is the exclusive provider of day-to-day operations and maintenance on state-maintained roads and highways in city limits, while major repairs and capital improvements on state-owned roads are performed by the State DOT (

NYSDOT The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) is the department of the Government of New York (state), New York state government responsible for the development and operation of highways, Rail transport, railroads, mass transit systems ...

). Both DOT and NYSDOT reserve the right to install signage, signals, and other roadway features on state highways, which then become maintained on a daily basis by DOT. DOT sets the speed limit on all roads and highways in the city, including those owned by NYSDOT. DOT is also responsible for oversight of transportation-related issues, such as authorizing jitney van services and permits for street construction. DOT also advocates for transportation safety issues, including promotion of pedestrian and

bicycle safety Bicycle safety is the use of road traffic safety practices to reduce risk associated with cycling. Risk can be defined as the number of incidents occurring for a given amount of cycling. Some of this subject matter is hotly debated: for example ...

. Its regulations are compiled in title 34 of the ''

New York City Rules The ''Rules of the City of New York'' (RCNY) contains the compiled rules and regulations (delegated legislation) of New York City government agencies. It contains approximately 6,000 rules and regulations in 71 titles, each covering a different cit ...

''.

Traffic and street lights

The first traffic lights in New York City originated from traffic towers installed along

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

in Manhattan in the 1910s. The first such towers were installed in 1920 and were replaced in 1929 by bronze traffic signals. , the DOT oversaw 12,460 intersections citywide with traffic lights. By 2017, the DOT controlled nearly 13,000 signalized intersections, almost all of which had pedestrian signals; of these, over half (7,507) had countdown timers for pedestrians. In addition, 635 signalized intersections under the DOT's control had

exclusive pedestrian phase A pedestrian scramble, also known as scramble intersection and scramble corner (Canada), 'X' Crossing (UK), diagonal crossing (US), (Japan), exclusive pedestrian interval, or Barnes Dance, is a type of traffic signal movement that temporarily s ...

s . , the DOT maintained 548 accessible pedestrian signals for blind and visually impaired pedestrians. The first such signals were installed in 1957, but few accessible signals were added for the next half-century. In 2021, a federal judge ruled that the DOT had to install accessible signals at 9,000 intersections; the DOT plans to install these signals through 2031. All remaining intersections are planned to have accessible signals by 2036. The DOT maintains 250,000 streetlamps . Most of them are

LED lamp An LED lamp or LED light bulb is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and can be significantly more efficient than mos ...

s, installed between 2013 and 2018. One of the larger groups of traffic restrictions implemented by the DOT is in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

, where the DOT maintains a system of "thru streets" and split traffic-signal phases to prevent congestion on west-east streets.

Organization

*Commissioner of Transportation **First Deputy Commissioner ***Sidewalk Inspection and Management ***Staten Island Ferry Service ***Bridges ***Transportation Planning & Management ***Roadway Repair and Maintenance ***Information Technology and Telecommunications ***Borough Commissioners ****Brooklyn Borough Commissioner ****Manhattan Borough Commissioner ****Bronx Borough Commissioner ****Queens Borough Commissioner ****Staten Island Borough Commissioner **Policy **External Affairs **Finance, Contracting, and Program Management **Human Resources and Facilities Management **Legal

Management and budget

As of 2017, DOT had the budget and staff as follows:FY 2017 City Budget
page 334E, New York City Office of Management and Budget

Bridges

The DOT operates 794 roadway and pedestrian bridges throughout New York City, including 25 movable bridges. The agency's portfolio includes most of the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

and

Harlem River The Harlem River is an tidal strait in New York, United States, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the New York mainland. The northern stretch, also called the Spuyte ...

bridges, as well as smaller bridges throughout the city. DOT operates two

retractable bridge A retractable bridge is a type of moveable bridge in which the deck can be rolled or slid backwards to open a gap while traffic crosses, usually a ship on a waterway. This type is sometimes referred to as a thrust bridge. Retractable bridges d ...

s (the Borden Avenue and Carroll Street bridges). Other agencies that operate road bridges in New York include the MTA, the

PANYNJ The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...

, and the

bridges: *

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River ...

Manhattan Bridge The Manhattan Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the East River in New York City, connecting Lower Manhattan at Canal Street with Downtown Brooklyn at the Flatbush Avenue Extension. The main span is long, with the suspension cables be ...

Williamsburg Bridge The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway ...

Queensboro Bridge The Queensboro Bridge, officially named the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, is a cantilever bridge over the East River in New York City. Completed in 1909, it connects the neighborhood of Long Island City in the borough of Queens with the Upper East ...

Roosevelt Island Bridge The Roosevelt Island Bridge is a tower drive vertical lift bridge that connects Roosevelt Island in Manhattan to Astoria in Queens, crossing the East Channel of the East River. It is the sole route to the island for vehicular and foot traffic ...

Wards Island Bridge The Wards Island Bridge, also known as the 103rd Street Footbridge, is a bridge crossing the Harlem River between Manhattan Island and Wards Island in New York City that does not allow vehicular traffic. The vertical lift bridge has a total of twe ...

bridges: *

Willis Avenue Bridge The Willis Avenue Bridge is a swing bridge that carries road traffic northbound (and bicycles and pedestrians both ways) over the Harlem River between the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, United States. It connects First Avenu ...

* Third Avenue Bridge *

Madison Avenue Bridge __notoc__ The Madison Avenue Bridge is a four-lane swing bridge crossing the Harlem River in New York City, connecting Madison Avenue in Manhattan with East 138th Street in the Bronx. It was designed by Alfred P. Boller and built in 1910, doubl ...

145th Street Bridge The 145th Street Bridge is a four-lane swing bridge across the Harlem River in New York City, connecting 145th Street (Manhattan), 145th Street and Lenox Avenue in Manhattan with 149th Street and River Avenue in the Bronx. The bridge is operate ...

Macombs Dam Bridge The Macombs Dam Bridge ( ; also Macomb's Dam Bridge) is a swing bridge across the Harlem River in New York City, connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. The bridge is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Trans ...

Washington Bridge The Washington Bridge is a -long arch bridge over the Harlem River in New York City between the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. The crossing, opened in 1888, connects 181st Street (Manhattan), 181st Street and Tenth Avenue (Manhattan), Am ...

University Heights Bridge The University Heights Bridge is a steel-truss revolving swing bridge across the Harlem River in New York City. It connects West 207th Street in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan with West Fordham Road in the University Heights neighbor ...

* Broadway Bridge

References

External links

*
Department of Transportation
in the

Rules of the City of New York The ''Rules of the City of New York'' (RCNY) contains the compiled rules and regulations (delegated legislation) of New York City government agencies. It contains approximately 6,000 rules and regulations in 71 titles, each covering a different cit ...

NYC DOT Real Time Traffic Information
{{New York City Government

Transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...

Department of Transportation Air pollution in New York City