What's happening
This bill requires accessible buses to be available within one and a half miles of any bus line in New York.
Why it matters
Significantly expands accessible transportation coverage. By mandating accessible buses within 1.5 miles of any bus line, the bill ensures that people with disabilities are not just covered along main routes, but also in surrounding neighborhoods, closing a major gap in paratransit and accessible service.
Increases transportation equity. This requirement aims to reduce transportation deserts for individuals with mobility impairments, making it easier for them to access jobs, healthcare, and community resources without being constrained by current route limitations.
Likely to require infrastructure and operational changes. Transit authorities may need to adjust their fleet deployment, routing, and possibly invest in more accessible vehicles to comply, potentially increasing short-term costs but improving long-term inclusivity.
Could set a precedent for other states or regions. If successful, this approach could encourage broader adoption of similar accessibility standards elsewhere, pushing public transportation systems toward more universally accessible service models.
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Who cares
Transit riders with disabilities
The bill would require accessible buses to be available within a service area extending one and a half miles from any bus line of the authority and its subsidiaries.
Transit authorities and their subsidiaries
They would need to meet the new one-and-a-half-mile service-area requirement for accessible buses.
Transportation providers subject to fixed-route accessibility requirements
The bill would add the service-area requirement to the law governing accessibility of their local, fixed-route buses.
Headline styles
Expand Paratransit Service Area
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
1 Co-sponsor
History
- Enacting clause stricken
- Referred to transportation
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Expand Paratransit Service Area
In Senate Committee · Transportation · Sponsor Timothy M. Kennedy
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
5012
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 6, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. DiPIETRO -- read once and referred to the Committee on Transportation
AN ACT to amend the transportation law, in relation to the service area for paratransit transportation
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Subdivision 4 of section 15-b of the transportation law, as amended by chapter 385 of the laws of 1985, is amended to read as follows:
4. Accessible buses. The system shall include access by transportation disabled persons, including persons in wheelchairs, to not less than sixty-five percent of buses in the regularly operated fleet of the authority, which shall be properly operated and maintained to facilitate their use by transportation disabled persons. To meet this sixty-five percent requirement, all buses purchased, leased, or otherwise brought newly into service on the bus lines of the authority and its subsidiaries, except buses leased or otherwise put into service to relieve temporary, unplanned shortages of buses in service, shall be accessible to transportation disabled persons until the sixty-five percent requirement is met. Accessible buses shall be available within a service area measuring one and a half miles from any bus line of the authority and its subsidiaries.
§ 2. Subdivision 4 of section 15-c of the transportation law, as added by chapter 61 of the laws of 1990, is amended to read as follows:
4. Required level of fixed-route accessibility. a. Each transportation provider shall provide access to one hundred percent of its regularlyoperated buses that provide local, fixed-route service. To implement this requirement on and after the effective date of this section, all buses purchased, leased or otherwise brought into service on the bus lines of each transportation provider shall be lift-equipped except any bus which a provider has under contract of purchase on July first, nine-
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD02688-01-9
A. 5012 2
teen hundred ninety for delivery after that date. Such lift-equipped buses shall be properly operated and maintained to facilitate their use by transit-disabled persons.
b. The provisions of paragraph a of this subdivision shall not apply to buses that are purchased, leased or otherwise brought into service that have a useful life of six years or less.
c. Accessible buses shall be available within a service area measuring one and a half miles from any bus line of the authority and its subsidiaries.
§ 3. This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall have become a law.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.