Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live On The Brian Lehrer Show

January 4, 2019

Brian Lehrer: Good morning, everyone. And on this first Friday in 2019, getting around in New York City is already making news just as it did in 2018. Governor Cuomo had his shocker yesterday; you’ve heard this probably that the L train shutdown scheduled for April will not happen as planned. We’ll talk about that in two of our segments this morning. People are asking what’s up with the Fair Fares program that had been scheduled to take effect on New Year’s Day. Half priced MetroCards for New Yorkers with incomes below the poverty line. So far no roll out, no application process. And good news as last year ended for the Vision Zero program, traffic deaths were down to 200 for the year. The lowest since they started counting in the city since 1910. Though there are some complications with that. Crashes are up, injuries are up, pedestrian deaths are up as a percentage. So we’ll talk about that. And with transportation as our first topic, we’ll begin on this first Friday in 2019 as we usually did on Fridays in 2018 with our weekly Ask the Mayor segment – my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio.  Your questions can be about anything relevant to the Mayor. Our lines are at 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 4-3-3-9-6-9-2. Or tweet a question just use the hashtag #AsktheMayor. Happy New Year, Mr. Mayor. Glad you are doing this with us again in 2019.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: It’s my great pleasure, Brian. It’s been really great and I’m looking forward to another year together. I want to say Happy New Year to your listeners and just to say – I know you’re going to talk about Vision Zero later on in this broadcast. I want to emphasize, 100 fewer deaths on our streets than just five years ago. Vision Zero is working. Also, yesterday we announced another record breaking year for reducing crime in New York City. We’re the safest big city in America. Under 300 homicides two years in a row and what’s amazing is crime has gone down for five straight year, stop-and-frisk has gone down, and here’s the one I really want to focus on I hope we get to talk about it, Brian, arrests are down 37 percent and crime going down.

Lehrer: Go ahead, talk about it. Where is that 37 percent decline in arrests coming from?

Mayor: Well here is the bottom line, is that I think we’re finding that neighborhood policing is making a huge difference to begin with because it’s changing the relationship between police and community. But also what’s clear is that for a long time the protocol in place lead to too many arrests. And we talk about mass incarceration – let’s face it, the origin, the beginning of how anyone ended up being incarcerated is an arrest. And a lot of these arrests prove to be unnecessary. A lot of our laws were not what they should have been, but even the arrests themselves proved to be unnecessary. Under Commissioner O’Neill what we’re finding is we can drive down crime, a lot fewer arrests, and we can use summons, we can use warnings, a whole set of other techniques. And let me give you give a specific number that I think is particularly shocking. In 2017, 100,000 fewer arrests than four years earlier. That number went again down in 2018. I think the bottom line was that it used to be arrests was seen as a goal onto itself. And I’ll never forget, Brian, Bill Bratton told me early in his tenure as our Commissioner that arrests should not be seen that way. Arrest should be seen as one of many tools that an officer can use if they’re trained to use that whole tool box, and if we’re thinking about how to drive down crime holistically, including engaging community partners, and working with community leaders like the Cure Violence Movement – all of this has come together to show a whole different paradigm of policing where you don’t need to use as many arrests. That has tremendous positive impact that keeps officers out on the street instead of going to the station house to process an arrest that costs a lot less money. That obviously reduces mass incarceration.

Lehrer: And you have no way of knowing this, but I was actually going to give you’re the courtesy of the good news first in the segment on Vision Zero in particular since it’s a matter of life and death. 22 fewer traffic deaths than last year, sinking us below 1910 levels when I think more people got around by horse. So there are also the complexities in this which we’ll also talk about. Well what’s your Vision Zero report?

Mayor: Vision Zero is working that’s the top line. We’re now – we have five years’ worth of experience. And this was a brand new idea. I mean taking it from zero and building it out over five years. What we’ve seen consistently every year the number of deaths has gone down. If you’re taking about just five years, a hundred fewer deaths than five years ago on a brand new initiative that was unproven that had to be built from scratch it says the potential here is amazing. And I think the core of this Brian, is its changing driver behavior. We are in a country – I love my country but one of the problems in our country is the car culture became so dominant and drivers got the attitude too often that they could drive their car without having to think about the safety ramifications, particularly in such a densely populated city, particularly with lots of seniors and children, and folks with disabilities, crossing streets. And it ended up being a situation where drivers were rather insensitive to what was happening around them.  What Vision Zero has done is it’s woken people up, it’s educated people to think very differently. Take failure to yield as an example. I know – I’ve seen it my whole life in New York City. Drivers wouldn’t yield to pedestrians, and pedestrians didn’t even expect it. Well now that’s being enforced. The NYPD is giving out hefty tickets, and when a police officer pulls you over for failure to yield, that educates you and everyone who sees it is educated that you actually have to let the pedestrians go first. That’s having huge, huge impact. The traffic redesigns – look at Queens Boulevard. It was considered “the Boulevard of Death” that was a common place phrase in this city. We had long stretches of time under Vision Zero, where there wasn’t a single death on Queens Boulevard. So this is about changing behavior, educating people, showing there will be consequences, speed cameras. We now have the ability to put in a lot more speed cameras around our schools to protect our kids. You’re going to see a lot more of that in 2019. So I think we have something very special here, a policy that just plain works, and now we’re going to take it a lot farther.

Lehrer: So deaths are definitely down. There are other crash categories that are up and we have a caller who wants to ask about some of those. So I am going to let the caller do it and it’s Pat on Staten Island, Pat you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Happy New Year.

Question: Hey, good morning, Brian. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Happy New Year.

Mayor: Good morning, Pat.

Question: I’m sure you remember my voice from the two previous calls I’ve made.

Mayor: Yes, you’re an active listener. I like that, Pat.

Lehrer: And I should I remember, so we give other people a chance but go ahead. And what’s your question?

Question: My question is now – I know you talk about there was – what’d you say 22 deaths less than last year? So I know that’s from the West Side terror attack. I don’t know if you remember that.

Mayor: That doesn’t go under Vision Zero, that’s not accurate Pat.

Question: [Inaudible] traffic data?

Mayor: Say it again?

Lehrer: He asked is that not traffic data because the guy drove off the road to do it.

Mayor: I’ll double check, but I do not believe that – those we’re considered homicides, and obviously it was a terror attack and it was on a place where a vehicle was authorized to be.

Question: So my question is about the – [inaudible]

Lehrer: For a regular caller you don’t have a great cell phone, at least not today. So I am going to ask the question just for ease of listening for everybody out there. I think I probably have the same questions that you do. Some complexities in these numbers Mr. Mayor, the number of pedestrian deaths actually went up last year from what I’ve seen, the number of injuries went up, and the number of total crashes, total crashes also went up. So what do you make of those things put side by side with the reduction in deaths that is historic?

Mayor: So, one we have a lot more work to do unquestionably. It’s called Vision Zero for a reason. Maybe the aspiration is to change behavior, change traffic design, create consequences to such an extent that we literally don’t have any lives lost that’s what we’re shooting for. And you know, it may sound utopian, Brian, but when in just five years’ time we’ve reduced the deaths by a third. I mean that’s really hopeful science. So to those very really points. A lot more education, we have a lot more traffic redesign to do, a lot more is coming in this coming year. We’ve put in a lot of protected bike lanes and other traffic calming measures. You’ll keep seeing that. So I think there is a cumulative impact.

Look, in the end we don’t think every single category always moves perfectly in the direction we want and these are obviously human lives we’re talking about. We want everything to keep – all the crashes, all the injuries to keep going down. We know it’s not always going to work perfectly. But I do think the model works and if we apply it more and more intensely for example on enforcement. I mean we’re now in a position to take what was a very limited number of speed cameras around schools, and greatly expand that. Unquestionably that’s going to change behavior and reduce speeding. We saw the statistics when we had that big debate over speed cameras with the Legislature, that in the areas where the speed cameras are in place, the number of crashes goes down intensely, the number of deaths goes down. So there is more coming and I do think that will reduce the number of crashes, I do think that will protect pedestrians. And I think we have a whole lot of education to do. And that – Vision Zero is still very new in the consciousness, although I think it’s a powerful point, Brian, that’s it’s been broadly accepted by the people of this city. And a lot of naysayers thought it would not be – it actually has been embraced. But there is more education to do. The interesting thing is, despite some of the challenges that you raise, that we take very seriously. When you look against the national situation, I mean New York City is going in a very different direction that the rest of the country on this. Because in so many other parts of the country the number of crashes and fatalities are going up, here it is steadily going down. So something is working here.

Lehrer: Last question on this. If all of these traffic calming measures are being implemented, intersections redesigned, slower speed limits around the city, do you have any indications as to why the number of pedestrian deaths in particular went up?

Mayor: Well, again we had seen real progress on that and sometimes it’s just tragic specific situations. But I do think this is an area where the education all around is important. One of the things we’ve recognized in the last year or two especially. When we get to the winter months, and the rush hour coincides with darkness outside because of the change in the daylight and all that – daylight savings etcetera. We see – we saw a thing we had not realized early on in Vision Zero that there’s a real serious uptick and pedestrians are particularly vulnerable in those few months. And we’ve been doing a lot of education to say to people – be extra cautious crossing streets in that time period because drivers have not adjusted to the darkness. They’re used to the evening rush hour being in light and suddenly the conditions are much worse. Also, educating drivers and creating more police presence.

So, that’s an example of something where we’ve only been doing that intensely in the last year or two because we only saw the extent of the problem through research in the last year or two. We’ll do a lot more of that. I think that’s the kind of thing that’s going to help reduce those pedestrian deaths.

Lehrer: And you talked about the number of arrests going down 37 percent. We have, nevertheless, a skeptical NYPD – I think – arrest question from Steve in Brooklyn. You’re on WNYC. Hello, Steve.

Question: Hi, Brian, thanks for having me. Happy New Year, Mr. Mayor. My question is that – you know, the politics of data is that data exists to be interpreted. And you look at the revenue of annual ticket summonsing and it’s a staggering $545 million every year that officers are required to meet every year – year after year –

Mayor: Excuse me, Steve. That’s just not true. That’s not true, Steve –

Lehrer: Hang on – and Steve you’ll get to follow up.

Mayor: They are not required to do that.

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, go ahead.

Mayor: It’s just not – you know, Brian, I always want to be responsive to every caller but I also think – all your listeners are trying to figure out what the truth is. And when someone presents something like that, that’s just plain not factual – once upon a time in New York City, I think there was a real quota system that was unacceptable and was horrible to the people of the city. It was unfair to the cops too. Everything that’s been done in the last five year, starting with Bill Bratton’s leadership and now Jimmy O’Neill, has been to retrain the police force. We are not interested in maximizing the number of arrests. We’re interested in driving down crime. We’re interested in working with communities to improve quality of life. And that’s just absolutely untrue and there’s no evidence of any kind of system like Steve described.

Lehrer: And I’m seeing in the caller notes, Steve, that you’re the producer of a documentary called Crime + Punishments. So, you’re obviously digging into that. How do you want to pushback?

Question: Yes, we’ve seen four years of staggering evidence that was provided in a historic class action lawsuit by the NYPD 12 versus City of New York that demonstrates the actual [inaudible] egregious practice of ongoing quotas for arrests and summonses. To this day – this not something of an error, a bygone error. We have seen reporting as recently in the recent news in the appeal of the detective that was coming forward as well, and it continues to when we do screenings of the film, cops continuously come up to us and say thank you, this is something that the department and the City is unwilling to address –

Lehrer: So, since the Mayor denies that this exists anymore, what’s your evidence that it does? Or what – how does is the quota system – maybe it’s an informal quota system – working as you see it, Steve?

Question: Well, I was curious if the Mayor had seen the film and if he had any interest in meeting with the NYPD 12 because they possess evidence that demonstrates that going up to deputy inspectors, up to the highest echelon of the department that quotas are being enforced on personnel. Not all precincts, that’s absolutely true – and the department is shifting its tone in terms of how it messages, how it trains, that’s very true but one of the troubling notions is that, you know, we’re hearing a lot of feedback on the ground from officers that they’re still being pressured because even though the training has shifted and the messaging has shifted, there is still a de facto quota in practice. And I was wondering if the Mayor had any interest in seeing the film and meeting with the NYPD 12. I’m sure he’s aware of the story –

Lehrer: Steve –

Question: Of Sergeant Edwin Raymond who had denied –

Lehrer: Steve, thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, go ahead –

Mayor: Steve, respectfully – I’m sure Steve is speaking from a place of his own beliefs. He’s also promoting his film but the – happily would have senior members of my team meet with him and see the film and address whatever facts are presented. I never want to look away from anyone who is presenting some information that could be valuable.

But his facts on the surface don’t make sense. Arrests are down 37 percent over five years. I gave you the exact comparison of 2017 to 2013 – 100,000 fewer arrests. The entire [inaudible] every officer, 36,000, have been retrained. This is not accidental stuff or small stuff, this is a massive sea change. Now, it’s true if – by the way, the City Council led the way on this – move away from arrests and go to summons as an alternative for illegal activity and the kind of activity that many neighborhood residents want addressed.

And we believe that you don’t ignore illegal activity, you don’t ignore quality of life problems, you address them but whenever possible and whenever appropriate not with arrests but, for example, with summons.

So, if the number of summonses goes up because the number of arrests goes down, that’s not because of quotas that’s because of a policy change that reflects the values of the city, reduces mass incarceration, is better for the taxpayers, better for keeping officers on the street where they can do their job.

I mean just follow the logic here. But I – look, I will have my team look at any evidence if he has any evidence but I’ve been watching this very carefully. Is it possible some officers are laboring under old assumptions, sure. Is it possible some supervisors need to be given a clearer message that nothing from the past should continue, I could even believe that might be true and I’d like to know who they are. But as a question of what’s happen [inaudible] in the NYPD, this is an entirely different approach and if it was the old days, then there would be a focus on maximum stop-and-frisk and maximum arrests. Arrests down 37 percent in five years, stop-and-frisk down 94 percent – I think that proves that Steve’s assumptions are incorrect here.

Lehrer: Alright, Steve, you’ve got a promise there that the Mayor’s going to give you a meaningful rep to watch the film with so they’ll follow up on that. Alright, new topic – Governor Cuomo’s bombshell yesterday that the L train shutdown will not be necessary after all at least in its original form to make the Hurricane Sandy repairs. I see in media reports this morning that you got questions about this for the Governor and the MTA. What do you know and what do you still want to know?

Mayor: Well, I had a good talk with the Governor yesterday and look, I commend him for looking for a better alternative. That’s a good thing. The State controls the MTA, the Governor controls the MTA, I’m glad to see him looking for an innovative approach that will avoid all the disruption. And look, for the people of Brooklyn and the people of Manhattan who are going to bear the brunt of this – this is obviously wonderful news. There was going to be a huge amount of disruption in their lives and none of us want to see that.

Now, I have to say at the same time this is a – not only a brand new announcement, a very new technology, and we need to understand much better what this means and how and when it’s going to work because we should not, in my opinion, turn off all of the efforts that had been underway to prepare for the shutdown until we are 100 percent certain what’s going on.

Look, the MTA itself has a kind of checkered history around these big capital projects. We all know about East Side Access, we all know about, you know, huge delays and cost overruns, and other problems – I have to sort of trust but verify here that we are 100 percent certain it’s not going to end up being more like the original shutdown plan. So, we’re going to keep all the measures the City had prepared waiting in reserve. But if it proves to be 100 percent doable that this new approach can save all this time and hassle of course it’s a good thing.

Lehrer: How much lack of confidence does it inspire – I don’t know if you inspire lack of confidence like you inspire confidence –

[Laughter]

But whatever the right word is, if a no-shutdown fix was possible all along and the MTA just failed to discover that there were engineering firms who could do it that way until last week.

Mayor: Obviously, the MTA has some real explaining to do here. In principle, this information was available. I’m the first to say, sometimes in government you literally do find a new strategy, a new approach, a new technology – I mean that’s not impossible that that stuff can emerge at a certain point that you wouldn’t have known a year or two earlier. That’s fine.

But this is a little strange to me because it has gotten so much attention, so much energy, so much expense already – years and years of effort – and I want to know more. I want to know for sure that this will work but also why on Earth wasn’t it considered previously because if it’s out there – let’s say this technology has been around for a few years, you would have thought that they would have looked at this before locking in the current plan. So, look, I’m hoping that this is really good news that comes to pass but we’re going to be in a careful stance until we’re 100 percent certain.

Lehrer: And one other thing on this. There’s breaking news this morning – I saw it on Emma Fitzsimmons’ twitter feed, she’s the New York Times transportation reporter, she’s going to be on later – that the Governor has not secured the approval of the MTA Board for this, and he’s calling an emergency meeting to get it. The Governor always says he doesn’t run the MTA because nobody appoints the majority of the MTA Board but he seems to be dictating this. Do you have any reaction?

Mayor: It’s very simple. The Governor and the State of New York run the MTA. Every straphanger should understand that, I think more and more people do. I always say, Brian, you know, I’ve done 59 town hall meetings and over the last few years more and more people – I ask people who runs the MTA, is it the State or the City, and almost everyone now says, State. They understand it now. And I think it’s good that there’s a clear sense of responsibility.

Like I always say, if you want to talk about police or our schools or our parks, come to me but if you want to talk about the MTA, go to the Governor. I’m glad he is taking that power and that responsibility and trying to figure out a better solution here. As to the board, clearly the Governor controls the choice of the leadership and controls the budget, and I think overwhelmingly gets support from the board but it is a true statement to say the board is made up of different people appointed by you know, different leaders and they should play a board – you know the kind of role a board should. They should be critical thinkers, they should look at things, ask tough questions, make sure something will work. I think it’s important for the board to give this a hard look. But again I hope when the smoke clears that we have something here that will actually improve the lives of every day New Yorkers. And you know all the folks who were going to have their lives disrupted don’t see that disruption.

Lehrer: So on most MTA things, go to the State, go to the Governor but on Fair Fares people are coming to you. That’s the half price MetroCards as you know for New Yorkers with incomes below the poverty line. You had said January 1st roll out. Where is it?

Mayor: Yes, it’s January 4th today. I am precisely three days late Brian. I apologize for that three day delay. It’s a big new initiative. It’s never been done before and I really want to emphasize to all your listeners, this is the first time in New York City that we are going to help low income people pay less to get around and get the opportunity they need to get to schooling, to get to jobs, job interviews – never happened before in the history of New York City. I want to commend Speaker Johnson and the City Council for their leadership. But we also knew when we agreed to it back in June, there’s going to take some real work to put it together because it’s never been done before. Today we will announce, and I won’t go into the details because I will be standing with Speaker Johnson to make these specific announcements but we will announce a plan and start down the road to a whole new era in which we help low income New Yorkers get out of poverty and we do something that I think will, you know be another major step towards fighting income inequality which is the whole reason I came here.

I will note as I said back in June, my ultimate hope is that when on April 1st, a major new plan is approved to fund the MTA long term, which is something every New Yorker should care about, this is our last best chance to get a long term solution for the MTA for our subways and our buses, that that plan will include funding for Fair Fares, I think it should be part of the MTA budget, and then that will allow us to take resources and apply them to other needs in the city. But in the meantime we are moving full speed ahead and it’s very, very exciting and a lot of people are going to be reached and stay tuned in the next few hours.

Lehrer: There are people who say you have slow walked this because you never thought the City should have to pay for it.

Mayor: I don’t know how anyone can say that three day delay is – I mean first of all, we said no earlier than January 1st, that was the original understanding because we could not get it up and running before January 1st. We had to have the facts right. We, I’m very sensitive Brian to the fact that some new, noble ideas that have come out over the years weren’t 100 percent baked before they were announced and then there was a lot of frustration when they didn’t work. We were not going to let that happen so we believe this will be, when we announce today, the beginning of this and it will go in phases, that each phase will be ready at the date we say. There’s no slow walking in the least and I think it’s just disingenuous of anyone to try that. This is a brand new thing, it’s going to have a huge impact, I believe in it. You go back over years, I have said including going this show, I believe in the idea very much. I have always thought it should be funded by the MTA. But we also came to an agreement with the Council to move it forward for the foreseeable future because we don’t have the funding for the  MTA right now and rather than not take up a good idea and keep building it and keep expanding it. We decided to move forward and I did that willingly and my team has put a huge amount of time and energy into getting it right.

Remember the Council works with us on the budget and the policy, that then the administration actually has to figure out how to implement it in a way that will help everyday people. And that is effective, is consistent, does not lend itself to fraud, is the most cost efficient, that is what the last six months have been about, getting this to work right.

Lehrer: And I know you don’t want to upstage your own event with the Speaker –

Mayor: No I don’t.

Lehrer: For later but can I assume that you will be announcing the exact income levels for single individuals and families to qualify, how people will apply and have to document their incomes, and whether it’s for paper ride MetroCards as well as weekly and monthlies?

Mayor: I appreciate your good journalistic instincts and I am going to say stay tuned in the next few hours. We are going to be giving a lot of specifics out, unquestionably and we are going to help New Yorkers understand how they can benefit, it’s going to reach a lot of people, it’s going to be a very important step forward but I’m not jumping the gun on the announcement.

Lehrer: Alright we’ll look for it this afternoon. Amy in Little Neck, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor, hi Amy.

Question: Hi Brian, thanks so much for taking my call, Mr. Mayor, I have a question and I know you have been asked this before but I wanted to ask you about the relationship between Amazon and ICE and law enforcement. And when you were asked about this before you said you didn’t know a lot about it, you were going to look into this and I’m thinking not just about the facial recognition technology but Amazon’s cloud services that they provide – sharing data between ICE, law enforcement and other government and private agencies. I wanted to see now that you have had some time to look into this, if you have any thoughts about this? I’m concerned about the city being a sanctuary city and your stated concern for New York City immigrants and the contradiction then of inviting one of ICE’s largest tech providers into our city.

Mayor: It’s a very fair question Amy and I have been looking into it. Let me just preface and say there are some things we know, there are some things we don’t know, you know in terms of access to information but I’ll start by saying one, I think ICE should be abolished. I think we need a new agency to handle immigration issues and customs issues because the current approach to ICE is broken and is punitive and negative, destructive and it must be done away with and started over. So that’s a broad point I want to make that I think is probably sympathetic to a lot of your world view. The second point is Amazon is coming to New York City and we are going to hold Amazon to high standard, we are going to hold them accountable for everything they have agreed to in the plan to come here, all the community benefits, all the things they are supposed to do for the surrounding neighborhood and for people who live in public housing for example. We are going to push them on a lot of other fronts to be part of this community and help contribute to the community and also share the values of this community.

So I am like you, very, very concerned about technology being provided to ICE. What I understand at this moment is that it looks like there is a specific connection between Amazon and ICE but we don’t have enough details to know exactly what. I think that Amazon should to the maximize extent possible explain to people what’s going on this. I think, like many other technology companies, you are seeing this all over the country, the tech companies should start questioning themselves. What types of government activities they want to participate in and set some limits on that. They have to put moral considerations ahead of profit. So this and obviously there are other questions way beyond ICE about the technology community providing things that have to be properly, in my view monitored and regulated. So I am concerned, I don’t have details because we can’t get them in the public domain yet. I am certainly going to push Amazon to be transparent on this question and if it turns out that Amazon has a contractual relationship with ICE, I’m certainly going to call for them to end that.

Lehrer: Do you have any leverage since you have already made the deal?

Mayor: I think it’s a misassumption to think that the economic development deal and jobs deal with Amazon reaches into every element of their decision making. I think that is just assuming that this second headquarters is the only thing on their mind when obviously they are a huge corporation with a lot of other things that they are doing. I think what is doable is public pressure. Again by coming into New York City they are now in an environment of intense scrutiny and where there is very clear progressive values and we are all going to hold them accountable. I want you know, to see the Amazon experience here in New York City lead to not just 25,000 but potentially as many as 40,000 jobs for every day New Yorkers, for CUNY grads, and kids who come out of our public schools and public housing residents – there’s tremendous potential positives. But I also think Amazon, enjoying our community has to understand our values and of course we are going to be very vocal about recognizing – when you say ICE in New York City you are talking about affront to half a million New Yorkers who happen to be undocumented are being treated in a brutal fashion by ICE. It’s something that Amazon should be aware of. Maybe they don’t feel that were they are now but they sure as hell should feel it here and they should not collaborate with ICE.

Lehrer: And with that, we are out of time for this week. Mr. Mayor, thank you as always – talk to you next Friday.

Mayor: Thank you, Brian. Happy New Year.