Massachusetts Statutes

Section 23. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council, may make by-laws for the regulation of travel on ways belonging to the commonwealth. Whoever violates any such by-law shall be punished by a fine of not more than fifty dollars.

Section 24. No person shall be liable to penalty under the four preceding sections for violation of a by-law relating to travel on a bridge, unless a white board containing in black letters the substance of said by-law is kept posted in a conspicuous place at each end of the brid…

Section 25. District courts in the towns in which the bridge terminates, shall have jurisdiction of complaints for the violation, on such bridges, of the five preceding sections.

Section 26. The department, county commissioners or any city or town in which a draw for the passage of vessels through a bridge used as a way and maintained at the public expense is situated, whichever has control of said bridge, may make ordinances or by-laws regulating the pas…

Section 27. When such ordinances or by-laws have been approved, the department, county commissioners or the city or town shall place said draw under the direction of a suitable draw tender, and shall post a copy of such ordinances or by-laws in some conspicuous place near by. Suc…

Section 28. If a vessel, through the negligence of the persons having it in charge, or through their neglect to comply with such ordinances or by-laws, or disregard of the directions of such draw tender, injures a bridge or draw, or a pier or wharf connected therewith, the owner …

Section 29. Such draw tender may remove a vessel which obstructs such draw, or interferes with the passage of other vessels through the same, or is made fast, without his consent, to such draw or bridge or to a pier or wharf connected therewith, or the persons in charge of which …

Section 2A. The department, for the purpose of insuring the free flow of traffic or for the purpose of snow and ice control operations on a state highway, may, by its own employees or with such other assistance as it may require, remove or cause to be removed to the nearest conve…

Section 2B. The department for purpose of promoting public safety upon limited access and express state highways, may from time to time make, alter, rescind or add to regulations to exclude, govern and restrict the use of such state highways by horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, ped…

Section 2C. The department, for the purpose of promoting public safety and convenience, may authorize by any rule or regulation adopted under this section with such limitations, if any, as may be deemed proper, the colonel of state police and the principal police official of the …

Section 2D. The department may, upon application by an interested person or persons and upon payment of an appropriate fee to be established by the department, erect on state highways, signs indicating the availability of gas, food and lodging and telephone or other services conv…

Section 2E. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 18 of chapter 90, the department for purposes of public safety and convenience may from time to time by regulations exclude persons and vehicles from state highways or portions thereof for such periods as it may deem necessary…

Section 3. When the name of any public way, place or section, or of any public park, is changed by the board or officer having jurisdiction thereof, if the name changed has been in use for twenty-five years or more, there shall be a right of appeal from such action to the departm…

Section 30. Except as provided in section nineteen A of chapter ninety, no vehicle shall travel or object be moved, on any public way, which has any device attached to or made a part of its wheels or the rollers or other supports on which it rests, which will injure the surface o…

Section 30A. The owner or lessee of any motor vehicle, trailer, semi-trailer or semi-trailer unit, as defined in section one of chapter ninety, which may lawfully be operated on the ways of this commonwealth may apply to the commissioner of highways for a permit authorizing the o…

Section 31. No vehicle which with its load weighs more than four tons shall, when equipped with metallic tires, travel upon any public way at a speed greater than four miles an hour.

Section 32. Any person violating any provision of section thirty, thirty A, or thirty-one, or the regulations made or permits granted under authority thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars, to be paid to the commonwealth when state highways are i…

Section 33. Nothing in sections thirty to thirty-two, inclusive, shall affect the liability of the commonwealth or of any county, city, or town to pay for any damage or injury to any person or property.

Section 34. Except as otherwise provided in the following section, the department, person or local authorities having control of any bridge constructed prior to June first, nineteen hundred and sixty on any road shall maintain notices not less than one hundred feet from each end …

Section 35. No bridge on a public highway having a span in excess of ten feet, except a bridge constructed under the provisions of chapter one hundred and fifty-nine, shall be constructed or reconstructed by any county or town except in accordance with plans and specifications th…

Section 36. No person shall drive or move a motor vehicle on any way, as defined in section one of chapter ninety, nor shall the owner or bailee of any vehicle require or permit the same to be driven or moved on any such way, unless such vehicle is constructed or loaded so as to …

Section 37. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, any provision, clause, covenant or agreement contained in a motor carrier transportation contract that purports to indemnify, defend or hold harmless, or has the effect of indemnifying, defending or holding h…

Section 3A. No way in any city or town which is open for public use but has not become a public way shall be given a name unless the same is first approved by its board of survey, or, if there is no such board, its board of aldermen or board of selectmen.

Section 3B. When any way in a city or town which is open for public use but has not become a public way is known by a name, identical with the name of another such way or of a public way in the same city or town, or so similar thereto as, in the opinion of its board of survey, or…

Section 4. A person owning or occupying land adjoining a public way in a town may construct a sidewalk within such way and along the line of such land, indicating the width of such sidewalk by trees, posts or curbstones set at reasonable distances apart, or by a railing; and, if …

Section 5. Cities by ordinance and towns by by-laws may provide for the removal of snow and ice from sidewalks within such portions of the city or town as they consider expedient by the owner or occupant of land abutting upon such sidewalks. Such ordinances and by-laws shall dete…

Section 6. Any town which accepts this section or has accepted corresponding provisions of earlier laws, may cause the snow and ice to be removed from its permanent sidewalks constructed of brick, stone, cement, concrete or asphalt, and may provide that the assessors may assess u…

Section 7. Any person, or the agent of any person, owning an estate abutting on any sidewalk as aforesaid, may, on or before November first in any year, procure the exemption of such estate from the assessment aforesaid for the following year by a stipulation in writing with the …

Section 7A. (a) For the purposes of this section, ''person'' shall include surveyors of highways, road commissioners, superintendents of streets in towns, commissioners of public works in cities and towns, the chief engineer of the highway division of the Massachusetts Department…

Section 7B. No person other than an employee in the service of the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof or an employee in the service of an independent contractor acting for the commonwealth or any such subdivision shall pile, push or plow snow or ice onto a state hi…

Section 8. The municipal board or officer having charge of the laying out of public ways may grant permits for the placing and maintaining of signs, advertising devices, clocks, marquees, public telephones, telephone booths and other appurtenances thereto, permanent awnings and o…

Section 9. The provisions of section eight shall not apply to signs or other structures projecting into or over the way a distance of less than twelve inches, nor to poles, wires, conduits, and appurtenances of railroad, railway, telegraph and telephone, water, gas, electric ligh…

Section 9A. The department, after a public hearing, may order the discontinuance of flashing lights on any billboard, sign or other advertising device, which in its opinion is so situated as to hinder the proper operation of a motor vehicle by distracting the operator's attention…

Section 1. The aldermen, selectmen or road commissioners shall cause permanent bounds to be erected at the termini and angles of all ways laid out by them. Such bounds shall be of stone, Portland cement or concrete not less than three feet long, two feet of which at least shall b…

Section 2. If buildings or fences have been erected and continued for more than twenty years, fronting upon or against a highway, town way, private way, training field, burying place, landing place, street, lane or alley, or other land appropriated for the general use or convenie…

Section 3. If the boundaries of a public way are known or can be made certain by records or monuments, no length of possession, or occupancy of land within the limits thereof, by the owner or occupant of adjoining land shall give him any title thereto, unless it has been acquired…

Section 4. If such building, fence or other encumbrance is adjudged a nuisance and ordered to be abated, the materials may be sold at auction and the proceeds applied to the payment of the expenses of the prosecution and removal, and, if insufficient, the court may order the rema…

Section 5. Any person may remove gates, rails, bars or fences which are upon or across a public or private way legally laid out, unless they have been placed there to prevent the spread of disease dangerous to the public health, or unless they have been erected or continued by th…

Section 6. Whoever builds or maintains a barbed wire fence within six feet of the ground along a sidewalk located on a public way shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty nor more than fifty dollars.

Section 7. The aldermen or selectmen may cause the removal from public ways and places of unused poles, wires, structures or other appliances, at the expense of the owners thereof.

Section 1. All trees within a public way or on the boundaries thereof including trees planted in accordance with the provisions of section 7 shall be public shade trees; and when it appears in any proceeding in which the ownership of or rights in a tree are material to the issue,…

Section 10. Whoever without authority trims, cuts down or removes a tree, shrub or growth, within a state highway or maliciously injures, defaces or destroys any such tree, shrub or growth shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by a fine of not more th…

Section 11. Whoever wilfully, maliciously or wantonly cuts, destroys or injures a tree, shrub or growth which is not his own, standing for any useful purpose, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than six months or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars.

Section 12. Whoever wantonly injures, defaces or destroys a shrub, plant or tree, or fixture of ornament or utility, in a public way or place or in any public enclosure, or negligently or wilfully suffers an animal driven by or for him or belonging to him to injure, deface or des…

Section 13. The powers and duties conferred and imposed upon tree wardens in towns by this chapter shall be exercised and performed in cities by the officers charged with the care of shade trees within the limits of the highway.

Section 14. (a) For the purposes of this section, ''utility'' shall mean a company engaging in the distribution of electricity or owning, operating or controlling distribution facilities; provided, however, that a distribution company shall not include any entity which owns or op…