New York begins removing controversial I Love NY signs

ALBANY - Highway crews began removing many of the controversial I Love NY highway signs Wednesday as part of the state's deal with federal highway regulators to avoid a $14 million penalty.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration will ultimately remove about 400 of the roughly 500 I Love NY signs dotting the state's major roadways, marking the end of a five-year standoff with the Federal Highway Administration, which said the signs posed a dangerous distraction to drivers and violated state and federal highway rules.

A total of 103 "motherboard" signs — currently the first in groupings of five blue signs in rapid succession — will remain on the roads, though the state will have to cover advertising for its iloveny.com tourism website and app.

The four "follow-up" signs will be removed and placed at rest areas, state parks and other off-highway sites, according to the state.

"Per our agreement with the Federal Highway Administration, the state Department of Transportation and Thruway Authority started relocating the follow-up signs along interstate highways," the DOT said in a statement.

"These signs will be repurposed at various service areas, welcome centers and state-owned facilities as appropriate to inform travelers of programs that support New York’s $100 billion annual tourism industry." 

More:I Love NY signs: Documents reveal plan to remove most of them in November

The removal effort began Wednesday, a day after Election Day. By 5 p.m., at least eight of the signs in the Albany area had already been taken down.

The state has pledged to complete removal statewide by Nov. 21.

The Federal Highway Administration withheld $14 million in highway funding from the state in early 2018 after the state ignored numerous warnings to take the signs down.

The federal regulators said the signs contained too much information and weren't of assistance to drivers, violating various rules and laws governing highway signage in the U.S. and New York.

The state was given until Sept. 30 to cut a deal or remove the signs in order to get its money back. 

Ultimately, the two sides cut a deal: The motherboards would stay with minor alterations and the follow-up signs would be removed.

More:New NY highway signs are illegal, feds say

The federal warnings dated as far back as 2013, when the federal administration rejected the state Department of Transportation's request to experiment with I Love NY signs.

The state went ahead and erected the signs anyway, beginning with a small number at state borders in 2014.

The signage was dramatically expanded in 2016, with the state Department of Transportation and Thruway Authority using emergency contracts and spending on overtime to ensure the new signs were up by the July 4 holiday.

That's when the state began erecting the signs in rapid succession: A "motherboard" touting all the state's tourism programs followed by four "follow-up signs" touting individual programs, like I Love NY and Taste NY.

All told, the state spent $8.1 million installing the signs — an average of $15,000 per sign. The DOT has said it's too soon to say how much it will cost to remove most of them.

The state said it will "modifying the remaining signs to include economic development regions of the state to facilitate areas of interest off the federal interstate highway system."

JCAMPBELL1@gannett.com

Jon Campbell is a correspondent for the USA TODAY Network's Albany Bureau.