ALBANY – The blue “I Love NY” signs that Federal Highway Administrators ordered the state to remove likely will not be coming down by summers end.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo pledged to remove and replace the controversial signs by the end of the summer tourism season following an order by the Federal Highway Administration.
Federal officials docked the state $14 million because the signage did not comply with federal and state rules.
As of June 1st, state and federal governments officials remained deadlocked, indicating the current “I Love NY” signage will remain up.
The state has until the end of September to take them down and get the $14 million back, according to the FHWA.
The battle over the “I Love NY” signs along highways dates back to 2013, when the feds denied the state’s request to erect an early version of the signage.
The next year, state officials put them up anyway, leading the federal government to send letters telling the state that the signage doesn’t comply with federal law, state law and a key federal manual that lays out what can and cannot be placed along highways.
The signs don’t contain any sort of navigational information for drivers, which is a key requirement for that type of signage.
In total, the state says it spent $8.1 million to print and erect the signage, which works out to an average of about $15,000 per sign.
