Transcript: Mayor Adams Launches New Effort to Make Thousands of NYC Intersections Safer, Part of Broad New Street Safety Initiative

November 30, 2023

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: Morning. Normally we say good morning, but this is not a good morning. We're here again with the aftershocks of another death in our city, another death due to traffic violence. We've lost too many New Yorkers to traffic violence, way too many, and we must supercharge our efforts to protect all New Yorkers from our streets.

And today's announcement is an extreme step in the right direction. It comes as a product of our mayor and his determination to improve safety across New York, especially on our streets, and the hard work of our city agencies working together, New York City Department of Transportation, the Police Department, DCAS and the commissioners that lead these agencies as well as their expert teams.

It also comes thanks to the street advocacy of so many groups who have met and kept this a high priority. Transportation Alternatives, Families for Safe Streets, Regional Plan Association, Tri-State Trip Campaign, Bike New York, New York League of Conservation Voters and a huge, huge deep thanks to our community members, our parents, families and friends of victims and concerned neighbors who don't let a death on our streets be just another tragic statistic, like the North Brooklyn Coalition, which formed so quickly after Kamari Hughes' death.

You take time out of your day, you turn your pain into advocacy, you speak out and yes, your voices are heard. To your neighborhood and grassroots advocacy, we and so many others are deeply grateful, and today's announcement is a culmination of that work. I'd like to introduce our mayor, Eric Adams, the public safety mayor, the mayor that's pledged to keep our city safe and every day does exactly that, to give more details about the street safety announcements that we have in store for New York City.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I share the pains of the family members who have lost loved ones to the victims of vehicle crashes and violence. And it is imperative that we take the right steps in the right directions on how we're going to ensure that they stop.

Yesterday, losing a three-year-old child to violence is a real reflection and indicator. And so many years have gone by where I have spent so many years fighting this issue as a state lawmaker, as the bar president and I think of some of the children that we've lost in the process.

And we want to be clear on the direction that we're going to take as we move forward. Everything from street redesign to daylighting our intersections, doubling our efforts from the thousands of intersection redesigns to over 2,000. Looking at the number of things that we can do from raised sidewalks to all the various ways after sitting down with the coalition.

And speaking with many community groups and leaders, coming up with the various ways that we can make our streets safe, hearing from them firsthand. And I want to renew my commitment on how, as a team, we are going to move forward with the department of DOT, Commissioner Rodriguez and all of our partners here and our advocates here. We have some very specific plans that we're going to institute and put in place and we're going to list each one of them. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to our commissioner of DOT to talk about some of those specific areas that we're looking at and want to hear from some more of our advocates that are here.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Before we turn it over to the commissioner, I'm just going to give a quick overview of today's announcement. It's an announcement that addresses many of the stark realities of New York City. We are a city of crossroads, literally 40,000 intersections. You'll hear from Commissioner Rodriguez briefly on our decision to really make a firm and bold commitment to daylighting our corners to make sure that people can see around corners and pedestrians can cross safely. Another reality.

And we'll hear quickly from our commissioner of DCAS Dawn Pinnock on this one. We have the largest municipal fleet in the nation and with that size comes great responsibility. We take that responsibility seriously. We're making sure that we have safety technology in as many vehicles as possible.

We are increasing by five times the number of city vehicles that will have speed limiters, including 50 school buses. And we accept that traffic realities, traffic fatalities are actually violent crimes. And with that acceptance, we will be incorporating traffic fatalities in our CompStat reports that come out weekly and monthly. And our inspector… Chief Inspector for Transportation Rivera, will be giving more details on that.

So, let's start quickly with our Department of Transportation Commissioner Rodriguez, then to our Department of Citywide Services Dawn Pinnock and then to our Inspector… Chief Inspector for our Transportation, Rivera. Thank you.

Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, Department of Transportation: Thank you, deputy mayor, Mayor Adams and everyone. We know that family for service three, TA being great ally. And together, with support and leadership from the mayor. We can say that when United States has the higher numbers of pedestrian fatality since 1987, here as today in New York City, we have the lowest numbers of pedestrian fatality of the last 114 years.

And overall, we have the lowest numbers of pedestrians and cyclists and motorists fatality of the last three years. So, it's clear that the leadership of the mayor, the deputy mayor, the commitment, the investment, the three Es of Vision Zero, which is engineer, we had a great team at DOT working every day redesigning danger in the session following the data. We also had the other E, which is educational, with the Vision Zero and the investment that the mayor is making is working. And the third one is enforcement, NYPD stepping under the enforcement part.

Those three E has been producing the result that we have today. But today, as Mayor Adams, with his vision, the deputy mayor, we are announcing that we are increasing the numbers of daylighting that we've been doing in New York City. Every year, we've been doing close to 300 daylighting. But today, Mayor Adams, the deputy mayors and all of together, we are announcing that we're going to be doing 1,000 daylighting intersections every year.

And that's added to the other 1,000 redesigning danger in the section that we've already been doing. So, overall from now on, our commitment of this administration is that we're going to be redesigning 2,000 dangerous intersections following the data. A thousand of those will be focused on daylighting. 

Hoy nosotros estamos aquí con el alcalde Eric Adams, anunciando de que nació en Nueva York una ciudad que es un ejemplo de cómo se está reduciendo los números de peatones que están muriendo en coques. El más bajo que tenemos en los últimos 114 años, mientras que en el país es el número más alto desde 1987. Hoy anunciamos de que el alcalde Eric Adams, Deputy Mayor Joshi, y todos nosotros los advocates estamos trabajando para, de aquí en adelante poner daylights en 1,000 intersecciones en la ciudad de Nueva York todos los años, más otra 1,000 intersecciones que también la vamos a seguir rediseñado, para ser de Nueva York, bajo el liderazgo del alcalde, la ciudad más segura en esta nación. 
           
Translation: Today we are here with Mayor Eric Adams announcing that, in New York was born a city that is an example of how we are reducing the number of pedestrian fatalities. This is the lowest number we’ve had in the last 114 years; meanwhile, the country is seeing its highest numbers since 1987. Today we announced that Mayor Eric Adams, Deputy Mayor Joshi and all of us advocates are working towards putting daylights at 1,000 intersections in the New York City every year, in addition to another 1,000 intersections that we will continue to redesign to make New York, under the mayor’s leadership, the safety city in the nation.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. And now we'll hear from our commissioner of the Department of Citywide Services, who's in charge of our massive municipal fleet, 23,500 vehicles.

Commissioner Dawn Pinnock, Department of Citywide Administrative Services: Thank you so much, Deputy Mayor Joshi. First and foremost, I would like to make clear that New York City is absolutely committed to running the greenest and the safest fleet. And today's announcement is really just evidence of that work. As Deputy Mayor Joshi mentions, we do have a city's fleet that stands at 23,500.

And so over the years, we've continued to implement a host of safety measures, including mandatory training, leading the charge in terms of installation of truck side guards, installing cameras and providing reporting mechanisms so that we can look at driving behavior and to address reckless behaviors at their root cause.

So, today's announcement helps us to expand upon a pilot that we started in August of 2022 with the support of Mayor Adams, where we installed 50 intelligent speed assistance sensors into our fleets. Essentially what these sensors do, they impede a driver's ability to speed. So, if you are traveling at the speed limit or want to go beyond that, the computer and the engine no longer send communication to your accelerator. So, it essentially helps you to modify your behavior to ensure that you are engaging in the safest behaviors when operating a vehicle.

Today's announcement supports our expansion of that pilot by five times, over 500 percent, where we will have 11 agencies participating, 300 cars participating in that pilot, of which 50 of those vehicles are school buses. We want to ensure that our most vulnerable populations are at their safest when they are going to and from school. And so this is really a tremendous day.

Frankly, New York City is the first in the nation to install this type of technology within its school buses. So, we really look forward to continuing to work with our community advocates and partners to really amplify the effectiveness of this. On a parallel track, we're also working with the federal government in order to try to seek grant monies in order to have a more full scale implementation of this technology. That so far has already shown us that we can reduce our crashes by 20 percent, which is amazing when we think about the lives that we want to save here in New York City.

In addition, we will be providing additional training. Historically, we provided training to about 90,000 city employees, but this training will take it a step further where we'll provide training to our bus operators really informing them of how best to operate within an urban setting and to make sure that they have the support they need in terms of transporting our children to our schools and back home safely. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. And now I'd like to introduce NYPD Transportation, Chief Rivera.

Chief Philip Rivera, Transportation, Police Department: Thank you, deputy mayor, Mr. Mayor, commissioner, advocacy groups and the families behind me. I stand here too as someone who's been affected by traffic violence. I lost my cousin at the age of seven and I understand that this is not unique to a lot of people, so this is personal to me as well.

But it's important to remember that there's no one type of culprit involved in traffic violence in New York City. We have to educate and inform and oftentimes perform enforcement actions against anyone and everyone who uses New York City roadways, from DUI checkpoints throughout the city around the holidays to educations about the danger of driving in the dark when daylight saving time ends to informative campaigns warning about the perils of left-hand turns to reminders about walking across the street inside the crosswalk and not mid-block, cross at the green and not in between.

Our police officers and traffic agents do a lot every day. In terms of enforcement, we have seen increases across the board so far this year. Over 380,000 hazardous summonses issued, a 14 percent increase. Over 5,000 motorcycle seizures, a 51 percent increase. Over 12,000 limited use motorcycle scooter seizures, a 74 percent increase.

Over 3,000 DUI arrests, over 18,000 suspended licensed driver arrests, taking bad drivers off the streets. Over 1,500 summons issued to commercial trucks parking in our residential communities.

As a result of our efforts so far this year, as the commissioner of DOT explained, we're down 14.4 percent in pedestrian deaths, fatalities. However, we are still up 2.2 percent in fatalities overall. How are we combating this? Our enforcement is data driven, and this is precisely why we are putting traffic fatalities on the public facing CompStat page. This is to educate the community as well as our own offices internally, the importance of traffic fatalities and that we need to address it with the same vigor as we are addressing crime.

We conduct our enforcement on a rolling basis using a two-week analysis of collision prone locations known as the high visibility corridor enforcement. This concept is to provide highly visible police presence consisting of traffic enforcement agents, citywide traffic task force and patrol personnel coordinating along these locations throughout the city.

And so far this year, there have been more than 77,000 instances of NYPD members educating pedestrians and motorists alike about vehicle safety at problematic intersections citywide. Unfortunately, sometimes the best is a traffic ticket, and I know with the people standing behind me that the NYPD has their support.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you very much. Next, I'd like to introduce Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio, whose son Bryan was so sadly killed by a reckless driver.

Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio: Good morning everyone. My name is Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio. My son Bryan was killed when he was only five by a reckless driver. His loss brought so much pain to my family, to his friends at school.

Traffic violence is an entirely preventable public health crisis. And with different design and policy choices, we can build a truly safe city. For many years now, being a member of Families for Safe Streets, an organization entirely by those who lost someone to traffic violence or have been themselves being injured in a car crash. It's an organization that no one, no parent should ever have joined.

A month ago, a fellow Brooklyn family experienced the worst day of their life when seven-year-old Kamari was killed by a driver. Every day since, I have told his mother, his family, his classmates, his neighbors, the community that love and shares him, our children deserve better and they deserve safe streets and intersections.

I'm hurting it by today's announcement to improve 2,000 intersections and daylight at least 1,000. These changes might sound small, but they for sure save lives. Of course, that is more to do, but this is a real step in the right direction. We hope to see more crossing guards and car-free school streets to protect our children walking to and from school like Kamari was.

Our city can do more and do better, and it must. I look forward not to just today's announcement, but the many upcoming ribbon cuttings, as we unveil truly safe streets and intersections for everyone. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you very much, Fabiola and the work of Families for Safe Streets, the hardest advocacy to do in this entire city. And we truly appreciate the pain and the work that you do simultaneously to make the lives of so many better and to ensure that your membership stays low and one day, zero. I'd like to next introduce our Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Danny Harris.

Danny Harris, Executive Director, Transportation Alternatives: Thank you, Mayor Adams. And just it's an incredible testament to this work that we stand here truly with a safe system approach from public health to the NYPD, to DCAS and transportation and operations and obviously with your leadership. Mr. Mayor, today truly is a bittersweet day for us and for New York, Kamari and Jayden and Baby Apolline and Sammy and Cooper and Brian, these were all our children killed too soon on these streets.

And as a parent, like so many here, it's my greatest fear taking my kids to school or for my parents who are aging in place for them to be able to stay and thrive. Today is a moment where we're taking the streets of New York back and giving them to people. This is another moment where a systems approach that comes together that looks at how we can utilize data, how we can better utilize the fleet of New York City, how we can better design our streets under your leadership, Mayor Adams.

Just telling all New Yorkers that these streets belong to you, whether you're a child walking to school, and it's important to stress that there are children that are here with us, children who knew Kamari, all of you, just like my children and everybody else's, should never have to fear death or serious injury when you cross the street. And so today, another family enters the terrible reality of waking up without a child and joining this club that nobody ever should have to a Families for Safe Streets.

But today is a hopeful moment as well, because with these decisions that we hope and believe should be implemented as soon as possible and scaled, it's showing New Yorkers that these streets belong to you and that you can safely walk without fear. So, thank you for the safe systems approach. Thank you for leading on this. And may New York not only continue to lead through the nation, but lead for all of our residents so that everybody, no matter where you live, no matter your income, your age, your ability, can walk without fear of traffic violence. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for your leadership.

Mayor Adams: I think we met earlier this week with a group of parents advocates and many of these proposals came from them. And we know we have more to go. The goal is to get to Vision Zero. For long time, there's been a call for daylighting, there's been a call for including, in the crime stats, the vehicle crashes. There's been a long call for these things.

And as we move forward, we're going to continue to have conversations with the advocates, those who are on the ground looking at this data-driven approach. We're going to include the enforcement, the reckless drivers, of distractions, distracted drivers, these add to the level of vehicle crashes that we're seeing.

Just as we fought to address gun violence, violence is violence, and we want to make sure our streets are safe for all New Yorkers. And that is our mission. That's our goal. We're open to a few questions.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Morning. 

Question: I got two street safety-related things. First thing with your redesign, change redesign on McGuinness Boulevard, local electeds said it was not working for pedestrian safety, [was] working for considering going back to the original redesign. And then secondly, a proposal that came out last night that's going to have a big effect on streets is DFTs congestion price. We want to see your thoughts on the details there.

Mayor Adams: Okay. The entire coalition work with the DOT and the community there around the McGuinness project, Boulevard project, an area I know so well. I was the platoon commander in the 94 Precinct. I know how dangerous that roadway could be. And the community's continuing to dialogue with DOT and the Deputy Mayor's office. We know we're going to come up with a good project that's going to make that street safe.

With congestion prices, I'm an advocate for congestion pricing. It must be done correctly. We must make sure we don't displace the environmental concerns and issues into the Bronx. We must make sure that we do it in a fair way. I think it's unfortunate that these are New York City streets and we don't have control of the dollars that are coming from it. I thought that was a big mistake. New York City should have had a major input in these New York City residents that are actually paying for congestion pricing.

But be that as it may, I just want to make sure that as we roll it out, something that I advocated for in the state Senate, that we don't hurt those communities like the South Bronx and others that have been impacted negatively with the Cross Bronx Expressway and the displacement of traffic to those communities.

Question: The details. Do you think it's done? You said just specifically because you said correctly. Do you think...

Mayor Adams: Hold on, let him finish. Go ahead.

Question: You said you want to see it done correctly. Details out [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: [Inaudible].

Question: You said you wanted to see it done correctly. Now that you see there's more details out, they've been released last night. What do you think of those release?

Mayor Adams: I didn't see what was released last night. Once I look over it, I can answer that question directly, okay?

Question: Yes.

Question: Just to follow up. It's going to be about $15 per car. Do you think that that's too much for New Yorkers pay to go into the city? Do you think that's an appropriate amount? And I just wanted more details on the fleet vehicles that will have the speed monitors on them. How does it work on the buses and what zones will they operate in and more details about that?

Mayor Adams: Well, I think the $15 proposal is the beginning of the conversation. Now is time to hear from community to deliberate and to make the determination of who is going to be exempted, who's not going to be exempted. I think that anyone that's driving into the city for luxury purposes or convenience, they need to pay whatever the price is. Those who are there for necessities, such as a medical treatment that is mandatory by a certain professional, we need to take that into account.

We don't want to overburden working class New Yorkers, but those who are just driving for convenience of whatever the price is, they need to pay that price. We have one in the best transportation systems, I believe, on the globe, particularly in Manhattan where we have crosstown transportation service, up downtown transportation service. I use the public transportation system. And so those who are using it for convenience or luxury, I think whatever the price is, they have to pay that price.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: So, we're working with a nonprofit bus company and so the routing specifically ties in with the routes that they follow across all five boroughs. We really wanted to make sure that we tested the technology across every borough because we are in a process of evaluating the analysis, making sure that the technology is being utilized as intended and that we're looking at those safety measures across every borough. So, the routes really align with that nonprofit school schedule, but they do operate in every borough. So, we will have a footprint in every borough.

Question: ...at all involved in this pilot. I know that the seven-year-old Kamari who was killed was hit by an NYPD vehicle. Is that something that's being talked about?

Deputy Mayor Joshi: So, we are in talks with NYPD, specifically around installation of ISA technology on non-response vehicles. The reality is that we do have vehicles that are legally allowed to speed in order to provide services to New Yorkers and to respond to emergencies where we are currently in talks now to look at potentially installation on tow trucks as well as non-emergency vehicles for NYPD.