For the purpose of this subchapter, the following definitions shall apply unless the context clearly indicates or requires a different meaning.
ABANDONING A HIGHWAY. A road or highway is deemed abandoned if it is unused for a period of six years. Abandonment differs from discontinuance in that no affirmative act of a municipal body is required for the road or highway to become abandoned. Public streets cannot be abandoned. Paper streets can be abandoned if they appear upon a subdivision map and the subdivision is abandoned.
BRIDGE. A structure including supports, erected over a depression or an obstruction such as water, highway or railway having a track or passageway for carrying traffic, or other moving loads and having an opening measured along the center of the track or roadway of more than 20 feet between under croppings of abutments or spring lines or arches, or extreme ends of openings for multiple boxes and may include multiple pipes where the clear distance between openings is less than half of the smaller contiguous opening.
CLOSING A STREET. Procedure whereby a municipality prohibits through passage from one end of a street to the other by means of some type of physical barrier at a point along the street. Street closings can be either permanent or temporary. Temporary CLOSINGS occur for such things as parades, water main breaks, or emergencies and utilize temporary barricades to access while permanent closings involve the erection of some type of fixed barrier.
CULVERT. A structure whether of single or multiple span construction within an interior width of 20 feet or less when measurement is made horizontally along a center line of roadway from face to face of abutments or sidewalks immediately below the copings or fillets; or, if there are no copings or fillets at points six inches below the bridge seats or immediately under the top slab in case of frame structures. Both cities and villages are responsible for the repair of any culverts located within their boundaries.
DISCONTINUING A STREET. Procedure whereby a municipality ends the use of a public street as a thoroughfare, and eliminates that parcel of land’s classification as a street on the official map. A street can only be discontinued after it is determined to be useless by the municipality.
HIGHWAYS. Public roads maintained by the state, county or town. Town HIGHWAYS are specifically defined to exclude any roads within the boundaries of a village.
OPENING A STREET. A phrase, which has two distinct meanings. While most commonly used to describe digging or excavating a hole or trench into the street, it is also sometimes used to describe when a street closing is ended or a street is otherwise made accessible for travel.
RIGHT-OF-WAY. The area alongside both sides of a roadway that, while not paved is municipally owned. This area includes not only the paved or traveled portion of the street but also reasonable shoulders, including sidewalks and the grassy area between the sidewalk and the paved street. Roads may have been dedicated without specified rights-of-way or continuous use of a private road may have led to it becoming a street by prescription without defined rights-of-way. In the absence of a recorded dedication, a right-of-way would be interpreted as a reasonable width from the paved portion.
ROAD. A strip of land, improved or unimproved, used for purposes of travel between two points. If the public has the right to use a road then it may also be termed a street.
(1) PRIVATE ROAD. Any road that has not been dedicated to a municipality and upon which the public had no right of access.
(2) PUBLIC ROAD. Same meaning as PUBLIC STREET except the term STREET historically has been used to describe thoroughfares in municipal areas while ROAD or HIGHWAY has been used to describe thoroughfares outside of cities and villages.
STREET. Any highway, road, avenue, lane or alley, which the public has a right to use and appears. on the official map or a map filed with the County Clerk.
(1) PAPER STREET. Streets that appear on the official map of the municipality or a map filed in the office of the County Clerk but which have not been improved.
(2) PRIVATE STREET. Any street that appears on the official map or a map filed with the County Clerk but which has not been accepted for dedication or taken by condemnation by the municipality.
(3) PUBLIC STREET. Those streets that have been accepted for dedication or taken by condemnation by a municipality.
(Ord. 2-2006, passed 3-27-2006)