Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Announces New Vision Zero Action Plan to Make Most Dangerous Streets Safer

February 19, 2019

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Maureen, thank you for everything you said and I just – hearing your story, it's unbelievable that this has happened twice to a family here in our city and it's further proof of why we need to deepen Vision Zero all the time. I just have to say this is human. This is about everyday people, everyday families. Listen to what Maureen just told us, a family that went through this and has to think all the time about whether they're going to be safe crossing our streets. And this is what Vision Zero is meant to, once and for all, address – to break out of the past.

You know, the past in this city was a very dangerous place when it came to walking our streets, crossing our streets. We got to a point a few years ago where the number of traffic fatalities was almost as many as the number of murders in New York City.

That is one of the things that inspired Vision Zero. We said we were on a very dangerous path. We could not stay on that path. We had to change. And this is an example why no family should ever have to go through what you've gone through. And I have to say, we're going to talk today about the additional changes we've made, we're going to talk today about the fact that there is evidence this approach works, and we have to go farther and we have to do it urgently, but I want to begin by giving credit where credit is due to these heroes who are here with us – the family members who turned their pain into action. They did not have to do that. They could have just walked away and said, ‘We've been through something horrible. We're just going to keep it to ourselves.’ But no, they didn't want anyone else to suffer.

So I want to thank everyone from Families for Safe Streets and from Transportation Alternatives. Please give them a big round of applause.

[Applause]

Want to thank all the members of my administration. This has been a labor of love for so many people in this administration. They believe in this idea. They know it's groundbreaking, they know it's challenging, but they've put their hearts and souls into it. You're going to hear from Commissioner Trottenberg in a moment. You're going to hear from some of the elected officials but I want to do a special thank you to a man who's been one of the leaders and has shown how deeply the NYPD believes in Vision Zero – thanks, Chief Tom Chan for all you have done very much appreciated.

[Applause]

And we've gotten a lot of support in Albany. You'll hear from a few of the electeds, but one who I also want to single out and acknowledge and thank – Assembly Member Peter Abbate. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

So, here in Bay Ridge, a wonderful community, a community I've spent a lot of time in, a community with the whole gamut, every kind of New Yorker, a lot of children, a lot of seniors, and it's the place that people love who are members of this community and they need to feel they're safe. They need to. Parents need to feel it, our seniors need to feel it, everyone needs to feel it.

We said from the beginning that Vision Zero would change minds. It would change behavior. It would change the way we do things. We have some real evidence now after five years of the difference it can make – 2018 was the safest on the streets of New York City in over a century. You have to go all the way back to 1910, that's how clear it is that we have made improvement. We've done something very different.

We know that we have to be always vigilant. I want to be clear about this – part of why we said Vision Zero from the beginning was losing one life is one life too many – one person injured in a crash is one person too many. We have to hold that standard and this year – we've seen in the first weeks of this year some troubling indicators. We've had seven more fatalities than in the same period last year. That worries us. We take that very personally. We're taking additional measures immediately to address that, but part of why we're making this announcement today is to make very clear to all New Yorkers that Vision Zero is going to expand rapidly.

The things we did before are working, now we have to go a lot farther. There are some facts that really are eye opening. It was about only seven percent of the streets in New York City account for nearly half of fatalities – just seven percent of our streets. We know where the problem streets are. We've been addressing a lot of the biggest problems. Now we want to go a lot deeper and one example is the 8th Avenue right here in this part of Brooklyn.

So it's about drilling down, targeting each street that needs more work. It's a lot like precision policing, which if you will look at the history of the NYPD, if you look at CompStat, if you look at how crime got driven down, it tells you a lot about how we're going to do this with Vision Zero as well. We're focusing where the problem is, more and more, putting the changes in place.

Sometimes it will be a redesign of a street or intersection or an area. Sometimes it will be more enforcement. Sometimes it will be more education. Sometimes it will be all three, but whatever it takes, we're going to do it and it starts immediately. The plan we're laying out today, will go over multiple years, but a number of the things we're talking about today, will start this year in 2019. This year you're going to see more pedestrian head starts at key intersections. It's going to give people more time to cross the street and make them safer. This year you're going to see the traffic lights re-timed in certain key areas to reduce speeding. We know the things that work. We've seen it. You'll hear the details of the plan from Commissioner Trottenberg. The bottom line is every time we find something that works, we want to apply it in more and more places in the five boroughs.

We're going to make this work all the way from Westchester Avenue to Rockaway Boulevard. We're going to continue to ensure this is the safest big city in America, not just in terms of fighting crime, but also on our streets. We're devoted to that. We know it will work. We're all in this together too. We know how much the people of New York City want this to happen. I got to say to you, when we started with Vision Zero, I can't tell you how many people said New Yorkers would not buy into it. They would not believe in it. They'd resent it. It's been exactly the opposite. Not saying there haven't been opponents and critics, but overwhelmingly the people of New York City, have embraced Vision Zero. They understand that Vision Zero's a matter of life and death. I tell you something, I've done 60 town hall meetings. I can't tell you how many times people have said thank you for Vision Zero and how few times people have said, oh, we want to go back to the battle days. So it's working. It's saving lives. Now we need to do even more. A few words in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

With that, a really outstanding leader in this effort, and I've asked a Commissioner Polly Trottenberg  to do a lot. I've asked her team to do a lot. I've been very demanding of them. I have never heard them say it can't be done. It's too much. They've accepted the mission every time. And there's a lot of people alive today in New York City because of the great work of our Commissioner and everyone at DOT. Commissioner Polly Trottenberg.

[Applause]

Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, Department of Transportation: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for those kind words and thank you for your vision, your leadership and the resources you have provided to Vision Zero. I'm often asked by some of my fellow DOT commissioners in other cities, how has New York seen so more success? And I talk about all the great work we've done, but I have always said it starts at the top. It starts with having a mayor, with having a leader who's made the kind of commitment that you have. And it's great to be here today with Maureen, and the advocates, Families for Safe Streets [inaudible]. So many elected officials who I know have made Vision Zero a priority. We're proud of the work we've done at DOT but we know that this is a real team sport with our sister agency NYPD, with the elected officials and the advocates.

That's how we've been able to see as the Mayor pointed out, fatalities on the streets of New York decline by almost a third in the past five years. And I think one of the big causes, and I'm proud to talk about it today, I'm going to hold it up. This is some of the, as you would say, Mr. Mayor, the real data driven CompStat type work. Four years ago, our teams decided to do a really deep dive on the data and as you said, Mr. Mayor, we discovered, we looked at each of the five boroughs and we started out, I have the individual plans, we discovered the give and take in each borough at somewhere between six and ten percent of the key corridors are responsible for around 50 percent of the pedestrian KSI, killed and seriously injured. And so we realized that's where we want to put our efforts.

And I'm proud to say after the first four years we have done work on 90 percent of those corridors and intersections that we targeted in these first set of plans and we saw on those corridors and intersections a 36 percent decline in severe injuries and fatalities versus an eight percent decline overall on the other streets. So we've seen that our interventions have really worked, but four years later we knew we had to take a fresh look at the data because I'm happy to say some of the streets have become a lot safer and could be, as we put it, sort of delisted, taken off the list of priority corridors. But unfortunately new ones have emerged. And as you mentioned Mr. Mayor, of course we've seen a spate of fatalities early in this year and something we are concerned about and taking a good look at. And that's part of why we always want to be refreshing our approach on the data.

So we're very proud of these reports. And it's interesting in talking to my terrific staff this morning who I want to thank in a minute. You know we discussed that other cities have taken a look at this kind of data, but a lot of cities have not then done, I think what we've done, which is a really extraordinary list of interventions, you want to just -- those of you have the report, you can look at this page and then the volume of safety improvement projects, of leading pedestrian intervals, of the enforcement work that NYPD has been doing on speeding and failure to yield, the amount of education that our two agencies have done together. It's really been extraordinary. I think our efforts have been fantastic. And again, I want to thank the DOT team over here. We've got Eric Beaton, Ann Marie Doherty, Rob Viola, Julia Kite-Laidlaw. They have been some of the real masterminds behind this work.

[Applause]

And as the Mayor said for what will now be year six of Vision Zero, we are not going to rest. Our agenda is every bit as aggressive as it has been in the previous five years. As you mentioned, we've discovered like leaning pedestrian intervals, we think easy to do. We're going to be doing hundreds and hundreds of them. They've produced, we think tremendous benefits in pedestrian safety. We're going to be working on our left hand turn treatments, speed cushions, speed reducer program. We're going to be doing within NYPD a lot of high visibility enforcement and education. We're also going to continue, I think the work that is the most impactful, our safety improvement projects. We're going to once again strive to do well over 50 projects and again as this report targets some of the most crash prone corridors and intersections. And we're going to continue work with our sister agencies, not only NYPD but DCAS, the MTA, Taxi and Limousine Commission, all of the agencies that have a role in making our streets safer. So we're looking forward to another year where we hope once again we will continue to save lives on the streets of New York. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you very much,

[Applause]

One of the reasons that Vision Zero has been working is because a lot of elected officials have stepped up in support, and again, I think the stereotype in the beginning was that many elected officials would be either resistant or unwilling to support. We've seen quite the opposite, and I want to thank them for that. I want you to hear from several of them now, the first a new member of the Assembly and a very dynamic new member who I know believes in this cause and believes in doing things a different way to serve people in her community and beyond, Assembly Member Mathylde Frontus, welcome.

[Applause]

Questions on Vision Zero – questions on Vision Zero? Yes?

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: That’s very generous of you.

[Laughter]

Question: There’s this number of action plans and continuing action [inaudible] and we’ve seen traffic crashes and injuries up in some neighborhoods, down in some neighborhoods, along [inaudible]. I wonder if you could talk, Commissioner Trottenberg, specifically about actions, do we know, work best or do they [inaudible] some neighborhoods versus actions that work better in other neighborhoods. I know Chief Chan is involved in [inaudible] in some quarters unfortunate and dramatic results in other areas, maybe there’s not much [inaudible] what works where?

Commissioner Trottenberg: It’s a great question and again, I think, and I know Gersh, you will pour through this plan in detail and again, I think one of the things that’s heartening for us is, as I said, of all the corridors and intersections we saw that accounted for about 50 percent of the KSI and the city pedestrian KSI, we brought to a lot of them a whole suite of things but I think the number one thing we focus on and, you know, we have some leaders here now [inaudible] is speed reduction. That is clearly, I think, the secret sauce regardless of what else is happening on the street or behind the wheel, and there are a couple of ways we tackle that. I mean, number one is street redesigns and I think you’ve covered that in great detail. I mean, we’ve gotten, in the past five years, about 90 street improvement projects a year and that’s a breakneck pace. There’s always more to do, but when you’re doing that, particularly targeting some of the most dangerous corridors, we see, as you know, tremendous drops in crashes, injuries, and fatalities. And then there’s a whole other suite I think of speed reduction factors. The – we obviously have a new senator here who’s going to be a champion on speed cameras, we think that has been a big factor, the speed limit. So I say those have been some of our most effective interventions. I would add one more to the list, leading pedestrian intervals. We have gone from a city that was doing literally a handful of them a year, to now doing hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of them and giving pedestrians that extra time to cross the street we think has particularly been one of the factors in seeing the reductions in pedestrian fatalities.

Mayor: Okay, yes?

Question: Mayor, you mentioned the number of fatalities going down but the number of injuries seems to have increased by a few hundred from 2017 to 2018. Do you have any sort of explanation for that and also can you go into what measures you’ve specifically taken to address the increase in fatalities of this year over last year [inaudible]?

Mayor: Sure. Let me start and I’m sure the Commissioner and Chief Chan will want to add. First of all, to this question around enforcement, I’m a huge believer in enforcement. I’ve been in many a meeting with the NYPD where they’ve delineated the kind of enforcement their doing which is more aggressive than ever before. You know, at one point, I remember, the year to year comparison was twice as many speeding tickets, three times as many failure to yield tickets, and I said “go give more”, so we’re going to be giving more, we’re going to be really cracking down even more on speeding, on failure to yield. You’ll continue to see check points to stop people from drunk-driving, et cetera. So, one part of it, I think, is to identify any place that needs more enforcement and double down on enforcement. I think it’s one of the single best, and obviously one of the most immediate, flexible things we can do. But the other thing I’d say to you is that we know when you’re making change, it’s not always linear, it doesn’t always go in a perfect pattern, but we have seen over five years, extraordinarily consistent results. Every time we see even the slightest movement in the wrong direction we take it very seriously because it’s about human lives. What I do know is this a cumulative impact. Every intersection you fix, it’s fixed for the long term. Every time you do enforcement over and over again, it starts to change behaviors, people start to expect it. Certainly with the speed cameras, this is why what Senator Gianardis said is so important. Those speed cameras greatly reduced fatalities and injuries around school zones. Now imagine we didn’t have both hands tied behind our back and we could actually put those cameras where they were needed for the hours they were needed, how many more lives we could save, how many fewer injuries there would be. So it’s about more is more, and we intend to do a lot more.

Commissioner Trottenberg: I think that’s true, what you said, Mr. Mayor. I mean, I have often said even though we’ve seen incredible trends on Vision Zero, progress isn’t always linear. There are years were we have seen – for example, two years ago, cyclist fatalities went up quite a bit, we had 24 cyclist fatalities. Last year, they went down to 10, we’ve done a lot of work on creating safe bike infrastructure. I know Chief Chan will talk about his enforcement efforts particularly targeting things, for example, like motorcyclists. So, when we see the data start to move in the right direction, as the Mayor says, we look to target our efforts there and of course we progress to be linear on every front but some years, some things do a little better than others.

Chief Chan: And certainly, when we take a look, and we do a close analysis of the injuries and fatalities and we work with the Department of Transportation, we see that speed is a major factor in terms of vehicle injuries and collisions and things of that nature, but ultimately, when we look at pedestrians when they’re struck by vehicles, we take a look at where they are occurring, and intersections that are problematic and certainly the DOT is doing that and we certainly want to concentrate that we see that left turns cause three times as many injuries and also fatalities for us on our city streets, so as a Chief of Transportation, this message that I would like to share with all our city drivers, and one on the road, that if you slow down as you make a left turn, pay attention, look both ways and then use caution, you’re going to reduce the possibility of causing an injury or fatality. Left turns, by study and statistics.

Mayor: Thank you. Yes?

Question: You’re talking about changing attitudes for drivers and I just wanted to ask what about pedestrians. Now we see a lot of people with headphones—

Mayor: Yeah.

Question: —on, they’re not aware of their surroundings. Are they supposed to take responsibility for that and what’s being done to address that and I’d like to hear from Chief Chan as well.

Mayor: Sure. Look, let’s talk common sense first, everyone is in this together. Whether you’re driving a vehicle, riding a bike, walking across a street, everyone’s in this together. And we need everyone to understand that there are dangers and they have to be addressed. So I am very concerned about pedestrians who, you know, are so caught up in their devices that they don’t know what’s going on around them, that we’ve got to educate people to how dangerous that is – by the way, even more important, we have to educate people a lot more, and have a lot more enforcement on folks who are driving while using a device. Who are texting while driving, or on a call in such ways they can’t even pay attention to what they’re doing. Listen, I – every day I see it. In fact, the other day we were on the FDR and I told my detail, I saw someone like right next to me out the window texting while driving – the traffic was slow, so I’m sure they thought they could get away with – they were texting while driving, they were not pay attention to the road. I said “go pull them over”. It’s like they got to learn that this is not acceptable. So we’ve got a lot of educating to do, everyone. But that being said, the original sin here is quite clear – vehicles are where the biggest problem is and we’ve got to address the behavior of drivers. If drivers really play their position the right way, even if some pedestrians are making mistakes, you’ll still see a lot fewer crashes and a lot better safety outcomes. So, all of the above, but remembering where the first problem really is. Chief do you want to add?

Chief Chan: We’re doing some outreach also this year. Again, the education on the left turn and in conjunction with that, we asked that people do not read their texts and things of that nature while they’re crossing in the street because again, you need to look both ways and be aware of the vehicles and safety in all areas is a shared responsibility and we want our people who are using the phones to do it in a safe manor.

Mayor: Yeah, that’s – I would like to amplify that. I have a request of all New Yorkers – don’t text while in an intersection, it cannot be a good idea. If you need to text, wait until you’re out of the intersection to do it and everyone will be safer. Okay, who else? Julia.

Question: The seven fatalities, where are they? Were they in a specific location or in different ones and are they the problem locations that you’re addressing? So let me have Polly and Chief go – I want to just make clear, it’s seven more year-to-date compared to last year, so go ahead.

Commissioner Trottenberg: Wait, I’m sorry Julia, I didn’t catch the first part of the question—

Mayor: What locations and is there a pattern?

Commissioner Trottenberg: Oh, you know what, we’ll grab the locations for you. I don’t – I think one unfortunate thing we’ve seen about the pattern is we’ve had a few cases where there have been multiple fatalities and crashes, which is unusual, and I think if you followed our work, you know, we also look at time of day and seasonality. One thing, it’s just been an unusually warm January, that can actually have an effect because you have more people and more cars out and about, but we’re, I think maybe these folks over here, I don’t – I think we didn’t see any particular geographic pattern, but we can get you the list.

Mayor: We’ll get you the details. Okay, who has not gone? Dave.

Question: Mayor, you’ve gone over this, but could you just touch on the motivating factor in all of this, is it because we see overtime these problem areas that are responsible for more than 50 percent as you said or is the seven extra fatalities we’ve had this period over the same period last year or is it the trouble we’ve had in Albany trying to get speed cameras?

Mayor: No, the great question, I mean, no it is – we take the seven additional fatalities very, very seriously and we intend to reverse that as we go further into the year, unquestionably, and again we spent five years of steady decrease. We intend to see a sixth year of decrease in fatalities. The Albany situation I think is markedly improved. Let’s be very blunt here. The Republicans in the State Senate refused to take speed cameras seriously. They were willing to risk the lives of children it’s as blunt as that and there is a brand new State Senate that is immediately on the side of children and families and willing to move legislation. So that situation has greatly improved. No, it’s time for the next phase, we have gone at a lot of the biggest problems, and those plans are well on the way. But, now we need to go farther. We’ve always said that Vision Zero was going to keep growing. It doesn’t end; I want people to understand this. From point of view, for the rest of my administration, and whoever succeeds me I hope will take it up. This needs to keep growing, and growing, and growing, because we have a goal that is a goal that everyone believes in and we have to keep doing more. So, what’s motivating us is a lot of the previous phases are in place and are working; it’s time to go farther. Anyone else who has not gone yet? Jill.

Question: Mayor, on sort of a broader Vision Zero question regarding enforcement and cyclists. There has been an incident a couple of weeks ago where some cyclists were pretty – and cycling advocates were pretty upset after there was some video and images of a cyclist getting a – being stopped for a moving violation and knocked off his bike by a police officer. And this was during a ticket blitz following the death of a cyclist. A lot of cycling advocates say it’s not really helpful to ticket the cyclists after these incidents. They want to see more enforcement against cars. I am curious for your reaction to the amount of physical force, if you think is appropriate for the issuing of the moving violation against the cyclist and just generally what you think that kind of blitz – [inaudible]?

Mayor: Look, we train our entire police force regularly in the way to go about their work with the least confrontation, the least physical impact, and that’s obviously been working. We see that in any number of measures. The NYPD is getting a lot done; it’s the safest big city in America. Crime continues to be driven down with less use of force. But, I got to be clear that we – look, whenever there is a fatality at anyone, it’s a horrible situation, and we all feel it. That does not mean we’re going to stop enforcement. We’re going to be enforcing on anybody who we think puts other people in danger, period. So if an officer observers a cyclist doing something they regard as dangerous and illegal, of course they’re going to ticket them. Now, they should do it in the most careful way possible, that’s their training, and I’ve not seen anything from this particular incident, so I can’t speak to it. But no, if, if we know there has been injuries involving cyclists and pedestrians, we take that seriously, too. We need cyclists to obey the law, and of course enforcement is a part of that. Yes?

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. Transit advocates say that more cars, the more congestion, lead to more crashes.  You have the MTA indicating today that they may not get to congestion pricing until 2023. What do you make of that? How will it complicate Vision Zero?

Mayor: I haven’t seen the MTA’s testimony. What I do believe is that by the time of this state budget, April 1st, there has to be a plan to address the MTA situation, and fully fund or substantially fund the MTA as quickly as possible. I think a whole series of options are on the table, obviously including congestion pricing. So I can’t speak to what the MTA said today, my central focus is whatever that package of funding measures is, that’s what we need as a city. The more people believe in mass transit, the more they will take it that will reduce congestion. I think that’s the central challenge is, you know, reliable effective mass transit and we need a funding plan that will do that. Anyone who has not gone yet? Yes.

Question: [Inaudible] I know there has been a push for more bike lanes in this area, in this district specifically. Can any of the local electeds speak to that?

Mayor: Local electeds, anyone want to speak to that?

City Council Member Justin Brannan: I – I mean there is a couple of proposals on the table now. I think the overall feeling towards bike lanes has definitely evolved over the past I say 10 years in this area. I think maybe 10 years ago bike lanes were basically a non-starter and became a proxy for other arguments about things, but now it’s definitely heading in a different direction. I couldn’t speak to specific proposals, but there’s differently a change. I mean, as people get more conscious and the conversation changes and focuses more on Vision Zero and on reckless driving, aggressive diving. The conversations around bike lanes have certainly progressed in a good way.

Mayor: Okay, I just want to see – anyone else who has not gone? Okay, go ahead, Gersh.

Question: So, let’s get back to the culture, because the Senator and the Councilman have talked about the car culture changing the [inaudible]. You yourself had just mentioned that [inaudible] principal danger [inaudible] –

Mayor: Correct.

Question: ­– in New York City. So why does this plan actually call for significant sacrifices made to – by drivers? For example, limiting even where they could go, closing some streets to car traffic, lowering the level of service. Remember, when we talked about speed cameras, those cameras, [inaudible] 35 miles an hour and up. Why not lower that – that miles per hour on those speed cameras? Why not [inaudible] congestion pricing [inaudible] very strong support for congestion pricing right now?

Mayor: Okay, so thank you for you twelve part question. Gersh, and I have known each for a long time, we used to play softball together. So I am not going in the interest of time, I am not going to reiterate everything I’ve said on congestion pricing, I’ve made it very clear in my testimony in Albany that I think there are other things that are even more promising, but if there’s going to be movement on congestion pricing, it’s the kind of things I’d want to see addressed. And I’m certainly in dialogue with the leadership in Albany, the Governor, the Senate Majority Leader, the Assembly Speaker on a regular basis about what components will make up an MTA plan. The bottom line is we have to have to have a plan. On the question of closing our streets, look, I would argue on first blush, I’m not the expert, the Commissioner is, but I think right now we’re trying to sort of a bit do things in sequential order. We’ve got an MTA problem we have to fix, we’ve got a congestion problem we have to fix, and we’re going to be seeing a lot more on that soon, because we’ve put some pilots in place, and it’s time to talk about what we’re now going to do as a result of those. In my view, closing our streets is kind of contradictory to some of the other things we’re trying to address right now. But I don’t rule it out as a future strategy. I just don’t think it’s the immediate thing we should be doing. The – on your question about speed limit and school zones, I am not an expert on – if they’re all calibrated the same, and what that is, so I’ll let the Commissioner handle that.

Commissioner Trottenberg: Well, I’ll jump in on a couple of things the Mayor has said, and I – I don’t want to brag about having a plan that makes life miserable for people behind the wheel, but I actually think there’s a lot in here which is trying to change the balance of the streets to again focus on pedestrians, on cyclists. We do talk a bit about not quite closing off streets, but the shared street concept, which we’ve started in the Flatiron district and I think we’re going to try and bring more of that into the city this year, which is allowing some local access for local businesses and residents, but otherwise making it a street that’s very much for pedestrians and cyclists and hopefully people do enjoy the space. So, I think there's some of that embedded in here [inaudible]. The speed camera restrictions – I look over at our Senator here and our Assembly member – the requirement about the – that the cameras had to – you have to be caught going ten miles over the speed limit, the school zone geographic restrictions, and time of day restrictions are legislatively mandated. But I think we certainly look forward to working with our leaders up in Albany to continue to see what we can do to make more use of those cameras in more times of day in more places. Obviously, we think they've made a big difference in terms of saving lives.

Mayor: Okay. Anything else on Vision Zero? Yes.

Question: Can you tell us a little bit more about you seeing this person texting and driving in the [inaudible] get a ticket?

Mayor: Yeah. Well, first of all, it's a – whenever I see anything out the window that requires police action, you know, I'll say it out loud to the detail in my car and they communicate with whatever vehicle is trailing us to go and deal with it or to, you know, reach out to the precinct to whatever it may be. So, no, I mean, literally we were driving on the FDR and someone next to us was overtly paying more attention to her device than to driving her car. And I just said, pull her over, take whatever enforcement action you would take in that situation, give her some on-the-spot education because I can't, you know – I'm saying this as a parent. I don't understand why people take that chance. They could kill someone. You know, it's just, it's too – you get too engaged and too involved when you're texting or even for some people while they're speaking on the phone if they're not doing it, you know, in the legal way – if they don't have a headset or whatever. People just get too caught up in the device and it's dangerous. So whenever I see it, I tell the cops, go get them. Please.

Question: [Inaudible] you've said that you're going to announce some kind of plan in crack the abusive City parking placards.

Mayor: Yes.

Question: [Inaudible] for initiatives like Vision Zero because people with placards park in bike lanes our on sidewalks [inaudible] inappropriate places to park. You had said that was going to happen by the end of this month –

Mayor: Yes.

Question: [Inaudible] short month –

Mayor: Short month. Thank you for reminding me of the calendar.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: It’s going to happen by the end of this month. Yes. Rich.

Question: Do you know whether that driver ever knew that you were the one who –

[Laughter]

Mayor: I'm happy to be citizen patrol here. I don't know if they said to her, ‘Hey, the Mayor just saw you on your device texting when you're supposed to be driving.’ I don't know what they said to her, but I know they went and addressed it.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I was on my way to Albany, so it was Saturday going up to the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus in Albany Saturday morning. Okay. Anything else? Vision Zero – Gersh, come on back, Gersh.

Question: [Inaudible] you talked about the [inaudible] tickets. You're not a pedestrian. You're not a cyclist [inaudible] –

Mayor: .I'm a pedestrian often, Gersh, respectfully –

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Respectfully, Gersh and I are going to have a fight. I have been a pedestrian, a lot, Gersh. You got to give me that.

Question: [Inaudible] the plan.

Mayor: I still walk, Gersh.

[Laughter]

They have not taken away my right to cross the street and walk the streets. Continue.

Question: I will continue. So the plan did not call for a dramatic expansion in protected bike lanes, which we know makes roadways safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. You could – you may not aware of it [inaudible] painted bike lanes, which you are expanding dramatically across the city, tend to be [inaudible] parking. That one's pretty typical. Why not call for – as members of the Council have called for, a dramatic expansion of protected bike lanes?

Mayor: Look, we're doing a lot of different things – Polly can give you a more erudite answer but I'll give you the common sense answer. We're doing a lot of things. We're doing them rapidly and it depends on the location and what we think is appropriate overall, but we've also been really clear. I want to make this point about the changing nature of things. Every year that the NYPD drives down crime allows for more focus on other types of enforcement. Very clear message to the NYPD, very clear message to DOT that we expect there to be enforcement in bike lanes.

So that's something I think you'll see more and more of. We don't want people blocking up the bike lanes but it depends on the location which approach we're going to take.

Commissioner Trottenberg: So I'll talk a bit about this and I think – I'm not sure whether, I think maybe David was at the hearing that the Council just recently had, it was on e-bikes and e-scooters. But the question came off from Chairman Rodriguez about the City should be doing 100 protected lane miles here. And I want to [inaudible] and I know Gersh, you may disagree with our number but we think we did around 20 last year and I want to particularly highlight some of the big ones we did because the cross town lanes in Manhattan – 12th and 13th, 26th and 29th, Skillman – I mean some streets where as you know they involved a lot of parking loss, a lot of real redesign of the streets, and we think they're going to you know – they're really important connections to the city's bike network.

You know, I told the chairman we’ll take up this challenge but I also spoke to some of the Council members just to sort of put a, you know, a flavor of what that would look like.
That would mean two protected miles of bike lanes every year pretty much in every Council district minus one. And you know, I think for that level of sort of aggressive move in on protected bike lanes, we need some real partnership with local elected officials with local businesses. We've been having Gregg Bishop in the Small Business Services administration involved in our work to make sure that as we do these bike lanes we designed them well, they're safe, they're fun to ride in, people feel comfortable riding in them. And we're doing what we can to work with local communities. Because obviously we do want businesses to function. So you know, we're ready to see if we can take that challenge and add more lane miles. Obviously we're going to need some real partnership with our elected officials too, I think, in some parts of the city.

Mayor: Okay. Last call on Vision Zero so we can go on to some other things – last call. Okay. Let me first do some weather very quick. So this is another one of these situations we are watching very closely because it could change and we are being very cautious about. We have a fast moving weather system that will be hitting tomorrow afternoon. And this is the concern that a lot of it may hit during rush hour tomorrow afternoon. Right now, according to National Weather Service, one to two inches of snow at the low end, three to four inches at the high end. We have learned to be cautious, to assume the worst. So, we're already in a stance of assuming it could be more than that and the timing could be exactly when we don't want it.

We are going to have post-positioning of salt spreaders and plows preparing for more snow than that. So people, it would – just message to all New Yorkers, if you don't need to drive to work tomorrow, don't drive to work because the evening rush hour will be tough. Take mass transit, stay in if you can. Get ready for it. We will have much more information as the day proceeds, as we get additional updates. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow night we'll start to see rain and that will reduce the impact going into Wednesday. But I'm very concerned about the – excuse me – going into Thursday, but I'm very concerned about the Wednesday evening rush hour. And so we want people on alert for that right now. Okay. We're going to take questions on any topics now, any topics at all, Rich?

Question: Bernie Sanders announced he’s going to run the president. Is [inaudible] your perspective on that a race at all?

Mayor: No, I have tremendous respect for Bernie Sanders. I think Bernie did an incredible service for this country in his campaign in 2016, and it fundamentally changed the debate. I think we're in a new situation here. There’s obviously a lot going on. It's a different dynamic and I think everyone should assess the current situation we’re in.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Not ruling it out. Other questions? Yes.

Question: What was your reaction to the windows at the Chabad of Bushwick that were smashed over the weekend? Any action that you’re taking –

Mayor: Yes. Yeah, I called Rabbi Heller and we spoke on Sunday. It's very distressing. You know, I spoke to this issue just a few days ago. There's been a clear uptick in anti-Semitic incidents and hate crimes. The way we are addressing this is by very aggressive efforts by the NYPD. There's a lot more NYPD presence around that synagogue and that community to reassure people, to also show that we are on the trail of anyone who commits a hate crime. And the NYPD has had a high level of success finding people. And I want to remind anyone who has hatred in their heart and thinks that this is something they may want to do that, one, we will find you, you'll be prosecuted, and there's additional penalties.

The same exact offense that was not motivated by hate comes with a serious penalty, in many cases, jail time. But if there's a hate motivation, it adds a lot more jail time and we're going to make that very clear to people as we addressed these incidents. But look, there's something wrong in our country. We saw the horrible incident in Pittsburgh. We've seen it in other places too. I think it's the national debate which has become increasingly divisive, is somehow empowering folks who are committing these incidents. A lot of this is emanating from Washington, but we have to respond locally and show it's unacceptable here. Other questions? Yes.

Question: [Inaudible] Lynne Patton, the regional administrator from HUD just got stuck in an elevator at the Douglass Houses and had to be rescued by the Fire Department, something that's happened with the elevators there repeatedly over the last couple of years. What concerns do you have about her safety and the residents’ safety?

Mayor: Well, look, the residents of all of NYCHA deserve to see these problems fixed once and for all. We have a very aggressive plan that we announced a few weeks ago that I think will bring in the billions and billions of dollars we need to fix these elevators now. We need more federal support. We still haven't seen that. We need the State to send the money they allocated. We still haven't seen that. That's $450 million. We need help, but there's no question everything we've been doing with our new plans for NYCHA, everything we agreed to with the federal government goes at fundamental issues like elevators, and you're going to see a lot of changes when it comes to elevators.

In this instance, I have only seen a very preliminary report. We don't know what specifically caused it. It may have been an overcrowding situation. We're waiting to get more details. I'm told that it was about a 10-minute delay. We don't want to see that happen to anyone and we'll certainly be addressing the situation there.

Question: [Inaudible] seen the boiler repairs. We've seen the rapid repair teams that have been out every weekend. A lot of improvements in terms of tickets that have been in existence for many months and been making those repairs for residents. Yesterday we were at one of the [inaudible] buildings at Douglass Houses. They're imminent dangers to residents there that would never be allowed in a privately owned building – a bathtub about to fall in on the bathroom of a nine months pregnant woman, open up holes in walls, flooding, massive amounts of flooding, steps missing from stairs, and things of that nature in the building that are immediate physical threats. What can you do about those?

Mayor: Well, first of all, we need to – all the details. If you'd share them with our team the specific things you saw so we can get to work at that – get the team at NYCHA on those immediately. The whole idea that we announced was to fundamentally change how we approach public housing. We would bring in a huge amount of private financing. We bring in more federal dollars through Section-8. We have – we're going to rehab entire buildings and apartments from scratch under the RAD program. We have great examples of that already in New York City.

Those conditions are not acceptable. Remember though, the people at public housing, they're the backbone of the city. They deserve a lot better, but the price tag is $32 billion. The plan we put forward, will cover a lot of it and will make a big difference and we have to go at the most serious health and safety issues first like the ones you described. Those are unacceptable. They must be addressed immediately. But to fully achieve the goal of providing 400,000 New Yorkers with the housing they deserve, we've got to get federal resources too, and we've got to get the State to send us those $450 million. Yeah.

Question: [Inaudible] the city $30 million in a year – a week – $30 million a week in capital and operating cost. A lot of people are asking, where does that money go?

Mayor: That money operates what would be its own city of 400,000 people. Look at the list of American cities and see where 400,000 population ranks. It would be a very large city in the context of this country. But the difference here is it's a city that was missing the investment it was owed by the federal government for decades. Public housing was not created locally. It was started by the federal government on the promise that it would be funded to consistently. And that stopped in the 1980s. There's some funding, but nowhere near what 400,000 people deserve. And this is the truth, we have to come to grips with it. Now, do I think that situation is stuck forever? No, I don't. I actually think after the 2020 election, different president, different U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer majority leader, we could see some real investment in public housing.

It should be part of all of the infrastructure investments that are being talked about for this country. And we could turn things around. Go to Ocean Bay in the Rockaways, go to Campos in the Lower East Side – you can see in this city right now in real time apartments that have been made right, buildings that have been made right. It can be done but takes a whole lot of money. Our residents deserve it, but the money the federal government is sending us now is keeping things barely functioning. It's not the money we need to actually fix everything and the federal government should get a lot more skin in the game. Okay. Other questions? Juliet?

Question: Can you talk about how you're addressing Airbnb?

Mayor: Airbnb – you know, I'm always amazed at this – is big companies that have a chance to do it right and decide to do it wrong. Airbnb says they want to be good neighbors and they want to work with the city. So we said, give us a lot of the information, then we can work together. Every industry, traditional industries, have to give us a huge amount of information. Talk to people in the hotel industry, talk to people in the restaurant industry, go down the list. They have to give us constant information so we can regulate them. Why? Because we want people to be safe. We want people to be healthy. We want to make sure that the public gets the revenue it deserves. So we can do all the things that we do in this city. So we have laws and you can't actually enforce those laws if you don't have information.

So we said repeatedly to Airbnb, give us information, show us all the people that are listing with you, show us the facts. They were resistant. The City Council then passed a law, went through the whole process, hearings and everything, passed a law. I supported the law. Here we go. Airbnb went to court to try and stop the law. The judge says, ‘I'm going to look at this, we're going to discuss this. But in the meantime, you know, the City has subpoena power if it wants to use it.’ We said, ‘Okay judge, we accept that a idea. We're going to use our subpoena power.’ So yesterday we issued a subpoena for 20,000 listings, 20,000 apartments – so that AirBnb has to come clean with what they’re actually doing in the City. Now, let’s be clear, there’s a lot of every-day New Yorkers who work with AirBnb, and they rent out their apartment once in a while – that’s not a problem. The problem is some unscrupulous landlords who have turned their buildings into de-facto hotels, which is absolutely against the law. If you want to have a hotel, you have to declare it a hotel. There’s a whole bunch of rules. The problem is people are taking advantage of apartments that are supposed to be for affordable housing and turning them into profit-making enterprises. The problem is a building where an apartment is rented out all of the time, not occasionally, where the residents are complaining that they don’t feel safe because there’s all sorts of new people going in and out of the building every day – that’s not acceptable. No one would feel comfortable in that situation. 

So, if we’re going to resolve this, AirBnb needs to act a lot differently. But, in the meantime, because they were not cooperating, we’re using our subpoena power. 

Question: How do you go after the landlords? I’m assuming these are apartment building that you’re talking about, not private homes where somebody is – you know, has a tow-family house or –

Mayor: Right. The fundamental problem is apartment buildings, yes. One – the bad landlords who turn a whole building into a de facto hotel, the Office of Special Enforcement has gone after a number of them, and people who are doing these inappropriate actions are starting to see real consequences, real penalties, and they’re going to be seeing a lot more. In terms of individual apartments – if someone takes their apartment and, you know, goes someplace else and then rents it out all of the time – again, not legal, not appropriate, we’ll go after them. So, there’s different types of enforcement, but right now the whole situation is complaint-driven, because we can’t see the whole playing field – that’s why we need the information, just like any other industry. 

Question: Is that DOI? 

Mayor: It’s the Office of Special Enforcement that does the enforcement actions there. 

Okay, other questions? Yes?

Question: [Inaudible] big companies that you’re unhappy with [inaudible] there’s a number –

Mayor: This could be, like, a segment each week – big companies I’m unhappy with. Go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible]. So, there are a number of high-profile progressives that you’re normally aligned with who have been critical of the deal that you and Governor Cuomo supported. What do you think, in your view, they’re not understanding? As somebody who usually sees their worldview, what don’t they get –

Mayor: Look [inaudible] my fellow progressives, they usually see my worldview, I usually see their worldview – we’re highly aligned, and if we all have a common concern, it’s that our own party played way too much to the center and lost touch with people and lost touch with every-day working Americans and became seen as a party more interested in, you know, the needs of elites rather than every-day people. So, there’s plenty that unites us as progressives and will continue to unite us. As a progressive, I’ve got a responsibility to 8.6 million people to produce jobs for them. I have a responsibility to produce revenue for them. We’ve talked about public housing before, I have a responsibility to people who live in public housing to get them opportunity. I have a responsibility to young people at CUNY to make sure there’s jobs that will allow them to get to the middle class. When you look at the polling on Amazon – a clear majority of New Yorkers believed it was the right thing to do, to bring the jobs and the revenue. The breakout showed something very meaningful, that working people, folks who are not as well off, really wanted it, people of color really wanted it, folks who had not had as much opportunity really wanted it. So, I would say to my fellow progressives, you know, we have an obligation to put our ideals into action for working people, and that’s what I was trying to do here. But look, I’ve said also very clearly, the fundamental thing that happened here – I don’t blame anyone for raising criticisms, I don’t blame anyone for calling for more in terms of corporate good citizenship. I think they missed what was good and important about the deal and why it meant something to working people, but I would never say don’t raise criticisms. What I’m shocked by is a company that when they hear some criticisms, they take their ball and go home, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They broke – Amazon broke their agreement with the people of New York City and I think it has said a lot to people all over the country about the true nature of that company. 

Question: [Inaudible] is there a difference between progressives who are in Congress [inaudible] executives and have the kind of responsibility you have – might that be part of the divide?

Mayor: Unquestionably when you are an executive when you have a responsibility for people’s safety and wellbeing, you have to see the big picture, and I do. I have very strong progressive values, but I think the best progressive values are the ones that come into action and help people’s every-day lives, and change them. You know, one of the things I’ve talked about it, a lot of progressives – and I’m among them – believe in the $15 minimum wage, but we have to be really clear that’s the end of the discussion – that’s the beginning of the discussion. Working people deserve a lot better than that. So, with the case of Amazon, we had the potential of 25,000-40,000 jobs at higher wage levels, half of which were projected to be available to folks who didn’t even have a four-year degree – that’s an amazing opportunity for working people to reach the middle class. That’s a progressive value. So, I do see it from the position of someone who actually has to serve every-day people, and I think it’s healthy for the progressive movement to see that, that if we’re speaking to every-day people and their lives, they’re going to care, they’re going to believe in our message. If our message appears to be abstract and disconnected from their lives, it’s not going to be good for what we believe in. Unfortunately, the 2016 election is a great example of that. Every-day Americans, too many of them didn’t feel like what they were hearing from my party was about them. I want to make sure, as a progressive, that we are speaking to working people. 

Yes?

Question: You mention working people, and I know you’re [inaudible] New York as America’s fairest city –

Mayor: Yes, sir.

Question: [Inaudible] about this ongoing crackdown of delivery – working cyclists who’s jobs exist entirely the wealthy, or office workers, want food relatively quickly and they use illegal e-bikes in order to deliver that food, but they are also the lowest paid workers in our society. Explain to me how you can justify –

Mayor: It’s a great question and I’ll make it really clear – there’s a lot of other ways to deliver food than something that’s outlawed. It’s outlawed, Gersh. It’s against State law. So, until it is legalized, I’m not going to be comfortable with it. Also, we have too many situations where because – this is a particular example of something betwixt and between – faster than a traditional bike, but not regulated the way a motorcycle or a car would be regulated. We’ve got to make sense of that. It’s not good. And for all of the people out there who feel vulnerable crossing streets – and I’ve talked to a whole lot of them – they are not ideologically motivated, their speaking from their life experience. Obviously, a lot of folks who happen to be seniors, happen to be disabled, a lot of parents with kids are worried when they cross a street and they feel like there’s all sorts of different things going on, and they don’t know how to navigate it properly. So, the e-bikes – I think there are going to be potential solutions. I want there to be a solution – I want legalization that’s done right, I want a safety focus – the pedal-assist bikes are a good example of something that I think is safer – and I want to see working people treated fairly, including the folks who do those deliveries. In the meantime, they should do the deliveries, the companies that work with them should do the deliveries with other ways of making the deliveries. There has always been other ways of making deliveries, that’s what they should do right now. But we want to make sure that the folks who are doing the work are treated fairly, and that’s what we’re working with the Council on now, that’s what we’re working with the Legislature on.

Gloria?

Question: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to follow-up on your answer to Amazon – you said that some of your progressive allies missed what was going to be [inaudible] –

Mayor: Sure. 

Question: So, was there anything you could have done to make sure that was being communicated to them at the time that this was being negotiated? As it was going out in the public? I know you don’t like to do the Monday-morning quarterbacking, but is there something in the message or in the role that you played here that could have done better or would have done differently to make sure that they weren’t missing that big picture that you talk about?

Mayor: I feel like everyone involved is a smart person and they made their decisions for whatever reason. I’m not going to second-guess what part of it was philosophical, what part of it was political. I can’t get into anyone’s minds, but I think it’s quite clear – if you’re looking at the facts, these were pre-existing incentive programs, and if people didn’t like the incentive programs, they could have voted against them a long time ago, or raised it a long time ago. And the other point that, you know, I think somehow the assumption started to grow that this was, like, a cash transaction as opposed to something that required the company to show up, build the jobs, produce the revenue, and then they got incentives. But, in the end, it’s not about – this is what I think has been missed in all of this, it’s not about whether there’s voice or opposition – if somehow that company thought they were coming to the single-most opinionated city in the United States of America and they weren’t going to have any opposition, I don’t know who they were taking to. You know, we’re all comfortable with Democracy around here. We’re comfortable with diverse voices, it’s fine. But the people – the ultimate measure – the people consistently believed this was a good deal for New York City, and the highest elected officials believed it as well, and we would still be moving forward with it today if not for a small group of guys who got around a boardroom in Seattle and pulled the plug without any notice, and that’s the real problem here. 

Yes?

Question: If I could ask you about Bernie Sanders –

Mayor: Yeah.

Question: You have spoken since the election about how you thought his campaign was better –

Mayor: When you say better, I’m sorry –

Question: Well, what he proposed and what he stood for, ideologically speaking. Do you see yourself campaigning for him?

Mayor: Again, I’ve been really, really clear – I’ll be clear again, it was just a few minutes ago. I do not rule out any particular path for myself and my focus, as I’ve said, is serving the people of this city, but also spreading a message all over this country about the kind of changes that we need to make, and using some of the examples of what we have done here in New York City that are not theory, that are not ideas that someone came up with but it had never been tried, but actual things we have done. Pre-K for All exists; 3-K is on its way; safest big city in America while showing that can bring police and community together – I mean, these are big examples. Guaranteed health care for all, two weeks paid vacation for all working people – these, to me, are examples of what the whole country needs. So, I’m going to push these ideas out there because it’s a time where people are going to decide where we’re going as a country, and also, if these policies became national policies, it would help New York City a lot. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I don’t judge for any other candidate. I have immense respect for him. He has contributed a lot to this country. Everyone has a choice in this season. By the way, anyone who thinks it’s bad that there are a lot of candidates I think misunderstands that value of a rich debate and of all the different representation of all of the pieces of the party in the process – I think it’s a very good and healthy thing. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, given the fact that Amazon did break its deal with New York and they’ve made very clear that they would not only be not neutral about unionization but would actively oppose it – should progressives be doing business with Amazon? Should like-minded people [inaudible] union people be getting stuff from them? Ordering stuff from them?

Mayor: Look, I would say it this way – first, I do want to note that even as Amazon made its decision, a host of other technology companies have been rapidly expanding in New York City. So, even though I think their presence would have aided the growth of our technology community here, unquestionably it’s growing and it’s going to be a very big part of our future either way. So, I just want to make that point so we don’t lose the forest for the trees in terms of what it means for our city. In terms of how progressives should look at that company, I think people should be concerned about the fact that a company could make such an arbitrary decision and leave a whole city and a whole community high and dry. I don’t think that’s good corporate-social responsibility. So, I’m not here to tell any individual or any union how to act, but I think people sure as hell should be concerned, because what they did was unfair to working people, it really was. And everyone can make their own decisions about their own decisions about their own choices as consumers, but this needs to be looked at. It’s a bad example.

Yes?

Question: Mayor, I want to ask you about recent youth guidelines from the City’s Commission on Human Rights to prevent discrimination against people based on their hairstyles. It’s obviously been an issue for certain people. And I’m just sort of curious – your own son’s hair was very iconic in 2015. So, I’m curious what you think of these guidelines overall and also whether this has ever been an issue that you’ve been aware of that anyone in your family has faced or something you’ve given thought to?

Mayor: Of course. Absolutely. When I got together with Chirlane in 1991, it began my education on the question of hair. You know, she told me many, many stories of people, particularly women, being looked down on because they had natural hair, or because they had dreadlocks, or whatever it may be. And it’s appalling to me that that ever went on, but it still goes on to this day. And, you know, Chirlane is very proud of her hair, and Dante is very proud of his hair, and, you know, they’re conscious of the fact that there’s been a whole history of discrimination and it’s unacceptable. So, I applaud the Human Rights Commission. I think it had to be done, because you’d think – it’s 2019, how on earth could this still be happening? It’s happening, I assure you. African-American women are being discriminated against because of their hairstyles to this hour, of this day. It’s not acceptable. It must end, and we’re going to lead the way here in New York City. 

Thank you, everyone.