Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced an unprecedented investment to renew dozens of vital state roadways across New York State during the 2026 construction season. Leveraging the $800 million that Governor Hochul secured in the most recent state budget to augment the final two years of its five-year, $34.3 billion Capital Plan, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) will invest more than $600 million in over 180 paving projects across the state to be completed next year. These projects, which total almost 2,150 lane miles, are in addition to the paving initiatives already scheduled as part of NYSDOT’s core programs and, taken together, represent the most ambitious annual road resurfacing agenda ever put forward by NYSDOT. This historic investment is part of Governor Hochul’s commitment to improve public safety through critical investments in transportation infrastructure, enhancing quality of life for all New Yorkers. In 2022, Governor Hochul secured full funding for NYSDOT’s 2022-27 Capital Plan, the largest in the agency’s history.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Great to see everyone. I'm so happy I'm here in this place without doing a storm briefing. Usually I'm here, the snow is swirling, the trucks are out. We're talking about some major storm — not that it may not happen later this year, but this is really nice to be back here.

I want to thank our Commissioner. She's done an extraordinary job, really fighting hard to make sure that our motorists, our commuters, our businesses have the best available to them when they're on our roads — the safest and the smoothest. And I want to thank you, and all the men and women of the DOT. A round of applause for all of our workers here today. Thank you for what you do.

Mike Elmendorf, president and CEO of Associated General Contractors — got a lot of work for your guys, Mike. Are you ready for this?

[...]

You’ve got to be ready for this. Let's get it done. Let's get it done. My partners in state and local government — Assemblymember John McDonald has joined us here as well as our County Executive, Dan McCoy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Speaking of, those two Irish-sounding names inspire me to say this: There's a classic Irish saying, “May the road rise to meet you.” Right? Well we're actually going to go out there and meet the roads, and we're going to build more roads so we can make sure that we can rise up and make sure that our roads are the very best in the nation.

And I think about the economic impact of roads. A lot of people just take it for granted, right? They don't think about what it would be like if we did not have safe roads that you could go at speed and deliver literally millions and millions of dollars of goods across our roads. Actually, goods valued at a trillion dollars go across our roads every single year. That is extraordinary. And there can be no compromising in the safety and security of our highways and roads to make sure that people get there safely. And millions of New Yorkers themselves rely on our safety — on getting kids to school and doctor appointments.

So I just want to say I'm here basically to say how grateful I am to all of our union laborers and our heavy equipment operators and people just doing the hard work out there. I have actually gone out and filled some potholes, okay? They told me, “Keep your day job.” But I have made this a mission since my first year as Governor, as I traveled places from Long Island all the way up to Buffalo. And I remember I was on a phone call with one of our Assemblymembers talking to her and I said, “Where are you?”

She says, “I'm sitting in a car repair shop because I hit a pothole on Long Island and I have $500 worth of damage. And I'm really unhappy.” I said, “Okay, we're going to do potholes on Long Island and all the way across the state.” So, we have. So I want to thank everyone who's involved in this process and funding our DOT capital plan was an important priority of mine. Over $32 billion for our five year plan, which was a lot of money, but had not foreseen many, many other costs that have intervened in the since time. We had supply chain issues and the cost of everything has gone up. We’ve got tariffs now with the price of goods going up from other countries.

So this year — even though that was the largest capital investment in our entire state history — we realized more was needed. And that's why this year, we funded an additional $800 million to cover the cost of asphalt, and concrete and steel, so our core highway and bridge construction projects can remain on track and make sure our momentum continues.

So what's this going to get us? This additional funding will facilitate 180 additional road paving projects statewide — on top of the ones that were already ambitious — totaling over 2,150 miles of repaving. So let's take care of those roads. And this is on top of our Pave Our Potholes (Program). I had a slogan, but no one thought it was very good. We want — instead of potholes, we want “not-holes.” But no one — that didn't really catch on. Okay, I'm trying. Potholes, “not-holes.” But our Pave Our Potholes and our bridge New York programs are going to be fully funded and make sure that we can protect our roads and bridges from Long Island to Rochester and beyond.

So also, taken together we're looking at 4,000 miles of paving work to be completed in the next year. Are you guys ready for this? 4,000 miles. That's a lot of miles. And, it's important. And this is, as I mentioned, the most ambitious resurfacing project in the history of our state — most roads ever paved in a single year since the beginning of our state.

So this is celebrating this. Let's make sure that we have a chance to continue to expand our state's infrastructure programs. I believe in them. I think they're important. This is a lifeline, especially as we think about all the roads. And we have a lot of rural areas. We have a lot of bad weather, and the salt and the ice just really take a beating on our roads. And we know the impact of that — as someone from Buffalo who was always seeing potholes on our roads.

So I want to talk about the fact that we also have to do this because we're bringing a lot of businesses, particularly Upstate. A lot more businesses, a lot of construction going on. We got Micron down the road. We have so many projects everywhere. And so, we have to make sure that our roads are safe and reliable.

I'm just here to celebrate this. I like a good celebration. Delighted to know that one year from now, we’ll be looking at 4,000 more miles of New York State roads that are paved. And we're going to continue that ambition that defines us as New Yorkers. And I want to thank, again, our Commissioner for leading the charge and overseeing a group of dedicated public servants who are out there day and night.

Whether it's the paving projects and other crews that are out there protecting us from the storms, and the winds, and power lines down and everything else we do. We know what we're in for. But we had the very best at the top of our DOT, and I want to thank our Commissioner and welcome her up.