BUFFALO, N.Y. - Forty-three.
That's how many X-LITE guardrail end terminals have been installed across state roads in New York.
The previously anonymous X-LITE, developed by a Nebraska-based company named Lindsay Corporation, barely registered on the public's radar until November 2016, when a Western New York native slammed into an X-LITE on a Tennessee highway and died instantly. Soon after, other fatalities then came to light, and despite Lindsay Corporation's insistence that the devices were safe and passed all federal safety requirements, at least nine states started removing them from the roads for precautionary reasons.
That includes New York. During a hearing in Albany on Jan. 25, state Department of Transportation Commissioner Paul Karas announced that all 43 devices will be taken off the roads by the end of the year.
It wasn't until Friday afternoon, however, that 2 On Your Side finally learned the location of these 43 X-LITE devices across the state.
And it wasn't easy to obtain this information.
After filing a Freedom of Information Law request on July 16, 2017 — 209 days ago, to be exact — the agency finally provided records to 2 On Your Side via email, revealing each X-LITE location by county and municipality.
According to these records, 17 X-LITE devices have already been removed from state roads — all in Seneca County between Rochester and Syracuse. The remaining 26 X-LITE guardrail end terminals, which will be replaced in the coming months, are located in Steuben County (19), Suffolk County (6) and Queens County (1).
There are no X-LITE devices installed in Western New York's eight counties, but many of the existing devices are easily within driving distance of only a few hours. The closest X-LITE terminals to Buffalo are the 12 installed in Bath, N.Y., located about 100 miles away in Steuben County and the Southern Tier.
The X-LITE device has not been responsible for any traffic deaths in New York state, and again, they will all be gone by the end of 2018 anyway. Still, 2 On Your Side felt it was important for Western New York drivers to learn where they could potentially encounter these devices during road trips across New York, particularly because it is nearly impossible for a regular driver to distinguish an X-LITE from another guardrail end terminal device.
We have asked a Department of Transportation spokesperson why it took eight months for the agency to respond to a FOIL request, but the spokesperson could not provide an immediate answer on Friday afternoon.
Prompted in part by 2 On Your Side's extensive reporting since March 2017, multiple state lawmakers have also been demanding the same information from NYSDOT. State Senator Cathy Young (R-Olean), Assemblyman Sean Ryan (D-Buffalo) and Senator Michael Ranzenhofer (R-Amherst) had each sent letters to the agency last year, asking for a list of X-LITE locations and requesting further scrutiny of the device.
Young even introduced a bill to ban the X-LITE from local and state roads prior to NYSDOT's decision to voluntarily remove them. Hannah Eimers, the 17-year-old Western New York native who died in an X-LITE crash in Tennessee, was born in Young's district in Fredonia.
Although the 43 X-LITE devices will be removed from state roads and highways in New York, it remains unclear if any local counties or municipalities have installed them on their own roads. Legislation sponsored by Young would ask NYSDOT to study whether any local governments have installed the X-LITE.
In a phone interview on Friday, Young said she was surprised it took eight months for NYSDOT to release the list of X-LITE locations on state roads.
"I believe they knew right away where they were, but for whatever reason, they weren't releasing that information. But the point is now, they have put the information out, they are removing them," Young said. "And hopefully, now, we can go to the next step and determine if any of these X-LITE guardrails are on our local roads."
2 On Your Side has filed multiple FOIL requests this month with local governments in Western New York to determine if they have been installed here.
We are still waiting on most of those agencies to fulfill the requests. So far, only the Town of Amherst's highway superintendent has responded to a FOIL request.
He confirmed that his department has not installed any X-LITE guardrail end terminals.
"The Town of Amherst Highway Department does not have any contract with the Lindsay Corp. and there are no X-LITE guardrail end terminals installed on any guarderails that the Town of Amherst Highway Department maintains," highway superintendent Patrick Lucey wrote in an email. "When guardrails need repair or replacement the work is contracted out, the Highway Department does not have the resources to make the repairs."
Senator Young said NYSDOT has already been in touch with local governments across the state.
"DOT is taking them off state roads, but we don't have any idea whether there are some in Western New York or other regions of the state, whether on county roads or town and village roads," Young said. "We need to do the right thing and have a review -- a really thorough review -- and try to inventory where these X-LITEs are, if they are on our local roads. And we need to get those removed also."