Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Metropolitan Yard. This is, yes, we can have a round of applause for Metropolitan Yard. This is a place where New York City renews itself, where we recycle old concrete from the infrastructure of yesterday to construct the advances of tomorrow. When New Yorkers are protected behind bike lane barriers and bus boarding islands, it is because our city had the will, the resources, and the concrete to build a safer future.
It is only fitting that we are here today to unveil Vision Zero Reimagined, our new roadmap for new and improved roads, public spaces and streetscapes across our city. I want to thank the 19 agencies and partners represented here as we unveil a whole-of-government commitment. The dedicated advocates and activists, city leaders, and everyone else here with us, all of whom share in our vision where every New Yorker is safe getting around our city, and all of whom have worked tirelessly to make today possible.
Now we have a number of leaders both inside and outside of City government. I want to acknowledge our DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn. We have our City Council member and chair of the Transportation Committee, Shaun Abreu. Our Queens borough president, Donovan Richards. We have our Assembly member, Emily Gallagher. We also have Families for Safe Streets members. Let's have a round of applause. We are so thankful for all of their advocacy, and our city is a better place because of it.
We also have Transportation Alternatives executive director, Ben Furnas, who is here with us. And we have a number of leaders. I'm going to try and go as fast as possible. Let's see how we can do this. We have our DCAS deputy commissioner of fleet management, Keith Kerman. We have deputy mayor of Operations, Julia Kerson. We have our sheriff - a new sheriff in town, Edwin Raymond. We have our Health commissioner, Dr. Alister Martin; our DSNY chief of safety and training, Jeff Pitts; our FDNY commissioner, Lillian Bonsignore; our Mayor's Office of Ops director, Annie Levers; our MOPD commissioner, Nisha Agarwal; we have our Corporation Counsel, Steve Banks; our Aging commissioner, Dr. Lisa Scott-McKenzie; our NYCPS deputy chancellor, Kevin Moran; our NYPD chief of transportation, Olufunmilola Obe. We have our TLC commissioner, Midori Valdivia; our TLC deputy commissioner for enforcement, Ira Goldapper; and we have our Business Integrity Commission here as well. Sounds like we've got a team here. And to close it out, we have not only TransAlt, not only Families for Safe Streets, [but] we also have Riders Alliance, StreetsPAC, Open Plans, PSC-CUNY, AARP, and NYTWA, who are all here with us.
Now, 12 years ago, City government set a goal as ambitious as it was necessary: to lower the number of traffic fatalities each year to zero. Vision Zero sought to build a city where millions of people live safely side by side, navigate our streets without fear and where government uses its power and resources to protect those that it serves.
More than a decade later, Vision Zero has helped to bring our city's traffic fatalities down by more than 30 percent. A significant achievement measured by hundreds of New Yorkers who are still with us, whose families are still whole, whose lives did not end in preventable tragedy. And yet, as we mark a dozen years since this great advancement in public safety, we are also all here united by the belief that more remains to be done.
Now, much has changed since 2014. New Yorkers get around our city differently. Bike usage is far more widespread. In 2014, daily bike ridership was measured at 420,000 daily trips. In 2023, that number was 620,000, a nearly 50 percent increase. As the way New Yorkers travel changes, so too must our safety strategies.
After all, just last month, nine New Yorkers were killed in hit-and-runs. In one week in August alone, three cyclists were killed. We mourn these New Yorkers, and we also know that our grief is not enough. Only action can honor their legacies. And only action can ensure that no more of our neighbors are taken from us.
And so, as we mark a new era for New York City, we are together today to usher in a new vision of street safety: Vision Zero Reimagined.
At its heart, Vision Zero Reimagined holds the same fundamental goal as Vision Zero: to eradicate all traffic deaths in our city, but it has also been updated to meet the challenges of 2026. A number of core strategic goals guide Vision Zero Reimagined. Let me walk you through them right now.
First, we are going after the dangerous drivers with a repeated history of reckless behavior responsible for nearly 40 percent of all traffic deaths. These are drivers who speed repeatedly, run red lights again and again, and are far more likely to cause severe crashes.
I want to acknowledge again our Assembly Member Emily Gallagher, who was a leader in ensuring that the city has these tools to be able to hold these drivers accountable. We will hold them accountable by launching our first Super-Speeder program, going after those who use illegal ghost plates to evade accountability, and by raising the safety standards that decide who gets to have and keep a driver's license.
I want to be very clear: if you are breaking the law repeatedly on our roads, you will not be allowed to drive in New York City.
Second, we will invest in the improved street designs that have been proven to save lives. We will deliver hardened daylighting or better treatments at a minimum of 1,000 intersections each year. And we will keep building protected bike lanes, safer traffic corridors, as well as new pedestrian priority zones. At the baseline, these will be improvements like physical barriers that protect pedestrians. And in other intersections, they will take the form of larger street designs and significant overhauls.
Third, we will reduce vehicle crashes by making it faster for New Yorkers to commute by bus, safer and cheaper to travel by bike, and easier to walk in our city. Cars are involved in 80 percent of all fatal traffic crashes. So, we are going to encourage New Yorkers to rely on different modes of transit through the most powerful of incentives: improving those modes of transit.
Fourth, we are making the vehicles on our roads safer. There are too many oversized vehicles in New York, enormous trucks rumbling down narrow roads that produce traffic, noxious emissions and crashes. We're going to get trucks off our streets by shifting freight to sustainable modes of transit like rail and waterborne transport and by promoting safer truck designs.
And we also know that e-bikes have been involved in too many tragic crashes. So we will work to create e-bike safety standards while holding accountable the wealthy and profitable delivery companies that push their workers, many of whom rely on e-bikes to crisscross our city, to drive quickly and unsafely to meet impossible goals.
Fifth, we will use data to make smarter, more targeted interventions, deploying technology to identify which intersections need improvements and which patterns need changing. And as we do so, we will strive to make our enforcement more efficient and expansive by increasing our automated enforcement capacity.
Finally, City government will set a new standard of responsibility. As part of Vision Zero Reimagined, we will buy and develop the smartest, safest, most advanced fleet of municipal vehicles in the nation. City vehicles will produce audible alerts, be equipped with automatic emergency braking and high-visibility designs and much, much more.
Over our first nine months in office, we've already implemented a far-reaching street safety agenda. We lowered speed limits in hundreds of school zones with Sammy's Law, improved dangerous roadways like McGuinness Boulevard and 31st Street in Queens and sent cease-and-desist letters to companies selling illegal e-bikes.
Today, we are building on that progress with this comprehensive plan, one which fights for a New York City where no one dies on their way to work or coming back from the park. Right now, as we stand here together, New Yorkers are going about their days. Parents are driving to school pickup. Delivery workers are preparing to drop off pizzas. Amateur cyclists are drafting off one another on the Brooklyn Bridge.
No matter what time these New Yorkers woke up this morning, each of them should be able to go to sleep tonight, assured that however they get around New York City, whatever mode of transit they use, be it car, bike, walking or public transit, that they will be safe.
That is the work we are recommitting ourselves to today and is the purpose that will guide us over the years to come. Thank you so much. And now with that, I want to turn it over to our DOT commissioner, Mike Flynn.
Mike Flynn, Commissioner, Department of Transportation: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for your leadership on these issues. It's great to have you all today at New York City DOT's Metropolitan Yard. As the mayor mentioned, the recycled concrete from this yard gets used to help us build sidewalk expansions at intersections, bus-boarding islands, bike lane barriers and many more treatments that help us design our streets with safety in mind.
Over the past decade, Vision Zero has proven that change is possible. Our efforts to redesign streets, expand automated enforcement, bring accountability to dangerous drivers and sustain public engagement have saved hundreds of lives and driven traffic deaths to historic lows.
But progress alone is not enough. Too many families are still experiencing preventable loss and too many of the most dangerous behaviors persist. This moment demands a sharper, more focused strategy. One that builds on what works, while confronting with urgency and precision the risks that remain.
We're introducing a new generation of tools and policies to follow the data, double down on what we know and present bold new strategies, like a commitment to developing the city's pedestrian-only and pedestrian-priority districts.
The plan represents a true safe-systems approach that acknowledges that we all make mistakes, that's human nature, and that our road system should be designed so that those mistakes don't cost us our lives as we simply try to get around New York City.
Safe systems means looking beyond just education, enforcement and road design. It means taking a holistic look to add as many layers as possible so that if one element fails, another part of our system will counteract and help prevent a crash from becoming fatal.
To implement safe systems, we'll be expanding our approach to Vision Zero to include efforts to address the safety of the vehicles themselves and their designs, to promote a shift in how people get around to safer options like buses and bikes and looking to post-crash care to better understand where and how crash impacts are greatest.
This action plan is the second of three signature plans the Mamdani administration is putting forth in its first year to address transportation safety, affordability and efficiency. It represents the big-picture vision for not just New York City DOT, but every Vision Zero agency over the next 10 years.
In July, I joined Mayor Mamdani to announce Next Stop: Fast Buses, Better Service, our joint action plan with the MTA to deliver world-class bus service to make travel around the city more affordable and accessible. And after the release of today's plan later this year, we'll be delivering our New York City Streets Plan update, with bold ideas to continue prioritizing safe, efficient and affordable ways to get around the city.
I'd like to thank our Vision Zero team for helping put this plan together. But Vision Zero is implemented by every unit at our agency. It's a collective action across DOT and so many other agencies citywide. So, thank you all. Next, I'm very happy to invite up Council member and Transportation Committee Chair, Shaun Abreu.
Council Member Shaun Abreu: Thank you so much for having me, commissioner and Mr. Mayor. The greatest basketball game ever played was Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point performance. It was so good that because there's no footage of it, some people don't believe that it ever happened. This Vision Zero Reimagined plan is the City's version of the 100-point game. The mayor is here with more than 100 policy commitments, and you better believe that it is real.
The comprehensiveness is what makes this plan so promising. The truly safer streets require tackling the issue from all sides, with infrastructure and the law working hand-in-hand. This plan implements Sammy's Law to reduce speed limits and corridors that families use every single day and will bring hardened daylighting to 1,000 new intersections every year. 1,000. In addition to addressing other key issues, like hit-and-runs.
Furthermore, because a small number of reckless drivers cause an outsized share of harm on our streets, we can't forget the [Stop] Super-Speeders law, which we'll use to crack down on our most dangerous drivers. Engineering, education and enforcement. These are the tools that have already reduced traffic deaths by 30 percent since Vision Zero began in 2014, and with them we will march one step closer to preventing every traffic death.
The City Council is eager to be a full partner in this effort with the mayor. And our fantastic DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn. Thank you very much for having me again.
Commissioner Flynn: Thank you, Councilmember. Next, I'd like to invite up Families for Safe Streets representatives, Amy Tam and H.P. Liao. Thank you.
Amy Tam: Good afternoon. My name is Amy Tam and this is my husband, Hsi Pei Liao. We are the parents of Allison Hope Liao. Allie was 3 years old. She was walking home from the supermarket with her grandmother, hand in hand, crossing with the light. A distracted driver killed her. She did nothing wrong. Her grandmother did everything right. The driver said he did not see them. Allie died of her injuries that day. Grandma lived, but she has never been the same.
We've told this story many times over the last 13 years. We're not here for your sympathy. We're here because we want you to be angry that this happened. We want you to be afraid that it can happen to someone you love: your child, your mother, your father, your sister, your neighbor, your friend. That fear is with me every day.
Hsi Pei "H.P." Liao: We are members of Families for Safe Streets, a group founded by people who lost loved ones in traffic violence and by people who were injured themselves. We advocate for streets that are shared. We turn our grief into purpose.
This action plan is a blueprint for New York City where everyone gets home at the end of the day. We are glad to see the work that so many of us have poured our lives into begin to take shape: lower speed limits, safer design in corridors where most people are hurt, technologies and vehicles that stop dangerous speeding before they start.
An action plan is only good as its action, so we'll be here to see it carried out. Thank you to Mayor Mamdani and everyone in City Hall for this plan, for this care and for this effort. Together we can finally reach Vision Zero. Our youngest son has something to say, too.
Aidan Liao: Hi, my name is Aidan Liao, and I'm 12 years old. Allie is my big sister, but I never got to meet her. I want to say thank you to Mayor Mamdani and the City for keeping me and my friends safe.
Commissioner Flynn: Thank you so much. Next, I'd like to invite up Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Ben Furnas.
Ben Furnas, Executive Director, Transportation Alternatives: Good afternoon, and thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm so honored to be here with all of these government officials, agency heads and, of course, every member of Families for Safe Streets here who do so much to inspire us every day.
Last week, over a million public school students started a new school year. My two daughters were among them. Every day on our walk to school, we cross a road where less than 10 years ago, a driver killed two young children while they were crossing the street.
As I stand here today, I'm imagining how different the first day of school could look in the years to come when every child has a safe walk to school and where no one ever has to worry whether their loved ones will make it home at the end of the day.
I'm really excited to be here to celebrate this groundbreaking new plan to save lives and end traffic deaths here in New York City. As an advocate, a father, a New Yorker and a former public servant, I am so pleased to see our city put this plan forward and for the work that has started.
"More than Vision Zero" is more than a slogan. It is a continual call to action, and one the Mamdani administration is answering by releasing this ambitious plan. Traffic deaths are preventable. While New York has made tremendous strides, cities around the world - Paris, London, Tokyo - have streets that are far safer than ours, reminding us we still have more work to do until we have streets that are truly the envy of the world.
Bold plans to implement low-speed zones, to build out our protected bike lane network, redesign the most dangerous streets and intersections, finally stop super-speeders, rein in dangerous driving, and embrace safer vehicles will save lives today and tomorrow and for years to come. It's all made possible by interagency collaboration and leadership out of City Hall, an all-of-government approach that declares loudly that no loss of life is acceptable.
Of course, this plan must be followed with groundbreakings, rulemakings, community board presentations, and loads of concrete and thermoplastics. And Transportation Alternatives will be here every step of the way to support this ambition and raise our sights for the streets that all New Yorkers deserve. Thank you.
Mayor Mamdani: Just before we go to on-topic, I just want to say my true appreciation for all of the families that are here who have had to endure the worst day in any New Yorker's life and then taken that pain and used it as a rallying cry for change and for action. I can tell you when I served in Albany alongside Assemblymember Gallagher, we would see Families for Safe Streets every single year come and have to relive those moments to try and inspire action. And I just want you to know that we would not even be able to have this decision in front of us to take this action were it not for all that you have done again and again and again. And we are so deeply thankful to you. Thank you.
Question: Mayor, on the way coming here, over three blocks on 57th Street, I noticed eight e-bikes, scooters and regular bicycles going the wrong way on a one-way street, going through red lights, weaving through traffic that was stopped so they could get around buses and cars. I'm wondering, since they seem to be very dangerous, what you're going to do to deal with that. Every New Yorker has a story about a near miss. And the question is, why don't the police arrest them or give them tickets? Why don't you put license plates on them to make it easier? There's a lot of danger on the streets just by the fact that they feel that they can go any place they want.
Mayor Mamdani: Well, I want to make very clear that our administration has no tolerance for the violation of street safety, no matter what mode of transit that you're using. And when it comes to e-bikes, I first just want to use this as an opportunity to also give an update on that, to what you were referring to, Marcia, of New Yorkers who have their own stories; many of them also have to do with e-bikes that can go at far higher speeds than what is legal on our streets.
And I want to thank our Corporation Counsel Steve Banks for spearheading cease-and-desist letters that have been sent out. A number of retailers, in response to those letters, have agreed to stop stocking those e-bikes for sale that violate our laws. There have also been a number of productive conversations, including with Alibaba and Best Buy, to start to modify their sales, and they have indicated an interest in developing sales restrictions.
Now, beyond that, we do also have members of the NYPD that are here. NYPD members, what our goal is, is behavioral change. And so, I don't look as much as a goal to the number of violations that are issued, the number of tickets that are issued. What I want to see is a change in behavior. And what our NYPD also has, though, are the tools that, if they determine that something is reckless or dangerous or it is a violation of what is able to be on those streets, they can even go so far as to take that micromobility vehicle. And they have done so in the past.
Question: If I could just follow up with another question. So, I'm also wondering, you know, you're talking about making these pedestrian zones. Could you give us an idea of what you envision as these pedestrian-only zones? Where will they be? Will they be in main thoroughfares? Will they be in neighborhoods? And what do you envision them to look like?
Mayor Mamdani: So I think that there is some of what we have said today that will be shared in greater detail in the forthcoming streets plan. And I know that the commissioner is hard at work at the development of that. I think what this also comes back to is looking at our city with a vision of how can we make this the safest place possible. And that also looks at places where the vast majority of people are currently pedestrians, and yet we haven't actually upgraded our laws - you know, whatever our guidance is - in those same neighborhoods. I don't know, Commissioner, if you'd want to add anything.
Commissioner Flynn: I think that's exactly right. You know, there's denser, transit-friendly neighborhoods of the city where they're already dominated by pedestrians, but the street may not really be designed to reflect that.
We know that enforcement is just one of the legs of the stool when it comes to safety. Engineering's another important one: how we design our streets. And so much of the way people behave does come down to sort of psychological cues. So, the more we can do to design an environment that encourages the behavior we want to - the more we'll see that behavior. Thank you, Marcia.
Question: So, before you took office, we asked several people with advice for you. We asked Janette Sadik-Khan, who is the Department of Transportation head under Mayor Bloomberg, and she said, "Declare that implementation is the alpha and omega of transportation policy. You're not going to get credit just for press releases, only for projects on the ground."
So why are we here putting out yet another plan and not implementing or at a groundbreaking or at something that we know how to do because we've seen a lot of these plans? And I have another question after this.
Mayor Mamdani: Two questions? Marcia's setting the standard. I appreciate it. What gives me joy of standing here is that I have stood alongside these very elected officials, these very advocates, these very agency leaders at groundbreakings over the course of the nine months that we've been in office.
Today is not a thing that should be celebrated in it of itself; it should be celebrated because of what it will deliver, and its success will be judged by what we deliver. Not the vision that we have, but rather what we can use that vision to actually get to New Yorkers.
And when I look at our DOT commissioner, when I look at our deputy mayor for Operations, I see individuals who know very clearly that that is how we will be measured, and that is exactly what they are looking for, is things that we can achieve in our time in office. And your second question.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: My second question is, some reporting earlier today from Streetsblog about the NYPD has shifted its enforcement to e-vehicles, to e-bikes, when we know statistically the number one danger for pedestrians, for cyclists, for anybody on the street are vehicles.
My question is, how do you get the NYPD to ramp up its enforcement of drivers who run red lights, who speed - even just biking here today, taking the alleged Grand Street bike path, completely blocked by trucks, cars, no enforcement whatsoever. How do you get the NYPD on board? Because much like other plans, we see this laid out and then the NYPD kind of shrugs.
Mayor Mamdani: So, there's a few things. The first is that our goal here is not going to be measured in terms of the number of tickets that are issued or the violations, but rather behavioral change. And the NYPD is a partner in delivering that change. So too is the redesign of streetscapes across the city. We've seen, for example, one of the most effective ways at delivering increased bus speeds is not just from the ticketing of police officers, but rather from ACE, or what used to be called ABLE - automated ticket enforcement, as well as the redevelopment of the streets themselves for the creation of those busways and bus lanes.
So, we are looking at every single tool that we have and just know that for us, it is not enough to have delivered that streetscape. We then need to ensure that it's actually being utilized in the same way. And so, we are going to exhaust every single tool at our disposal.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: Just last month the NYPD issued 28 percent fewer moving violations than in 2019. I want to know why that's been tolerated under your administration. And then I have an e-bike question. Collisions, this is year-to-date compared to last year, collisions of e-bikes up 25 percent, but moving violations are only increased by 8 percent. It sounds like there's a tolerance there. And I want to know, since you told NYPD not to give out these criminal summonses, why that is a worthy trade-off. And as far as, I just want to say, you're saying the behavior has to change - the behavior is atrocious all around.
Mayor Mamdani: And that's why we are here, because we know that there is still so much more to be done. And when it comes to what we have seen with e-bikes across the city, one of the key things that we've found in terms of some of the highest-profile incidents and crashes have been e-bikes that are going far beyond what is legal on our streets. And so, our focus has also been on how do we stop the sale of those devices so that that is not even an option.
Now, when it comes to the question of criminal summonses versus civil summonses, we were seeing a utilization of criminal summonses without any kind of an impact on behavior and creating a disparate policy for cyclists versus drivers. Our focus is for safety, and our focus is to ensure that there is no tolerance for any of these violations, no matter what your mode of transit is.
We know that close to 90 percent of all traffic fatalities are caused by vehicles in our city. We also know that for many, when they're talking of these near misses that Marcia has brought up, it comes from an e-bike going at 25, 30, 35 miles an hour.
Question: [Inaudible] I'm understanding your answer, moving violations for drivers don't impact their behavior? Is that what you've just said?
Mayor Mamdani: Sorry?
Question: Moving violations that they don't impact driver behavior. Was that your answer?
Mayor Mamdani: No, the point that I am making is that I do not measure success by an increased number of tickets or by an increased number of violations. To me, the judgment of success is by a change in behavior. I think these are important tools, but I don't think that they are all one-to-one. We have members of the NYPD here. If there's anyone that wants to add-
Question: Do you like the behavior you see on the street?
Mayor Mamdani: Do I like the behavior I see on the street? I think that there is far more to be done to ensure, no matter what mode of transit we're talking about, we're looking at an adherence to street safety.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: So, my colleagues over at Gothamist have reported problems with ACE enforcement. Some of it is ghost plates, some of it's people just obstructing their plates. On my ride up here, from Crown Heights up Bedford, where there were not a single block of unprotected bike lane that didn't have at least two vehicles parked in the lane. There were about six traffic cops that I counted on that stretch. There were no tickets on any windshield wipers. And then turned down Grand where on at least two occasions I had to jump out of the bike lane; once I had to avoid a 53-foot truck, which has no business being on Grand.
So, I understand that there's a real effort to move to automated enforcement because it is - because it's unbiased. But I'm not aware of any kind of automated enforcement that can measure this, you know, exterior dimensions of a truck. And there are problems with ACE. It has not been as successful as some of its boosters would have hoped. So, how do we get from here to being able to ride in the bike lanes to this press conference?
Mayor Mamdani: I think that it's going to take every single tool. That does not mean an exclusive reliance on automated enforcement. It also means a continued partnership with the PD to use those tools of ticketing when any violation is present. And I bike pretty regularly in our city. I see exactly the same things that you see. And part of it is, what tools do we still have that we haven't used under prior administrations that we can use now?
Part of this plan is also an identification of additional tools we need to develop through partnership with Albany. And that's what also is so important about having Assembly Member Emily Gallagher here, having Families for Safe Streets here, is because we know there will also need to be an agenda that enhances the tools that the city has so that we can get to that point where our streetscape is the envy of the world.
Question: I don't know if the NYPD official already left, but I have one off-topic and one on-topic, actually. The statistics that were just referenced that are going down on traffic enforcement from the NYPD, I'm wondering if you just have a sense of why there's such a steep drop and if you're going to actually order your NYPD to step up that enforcement. And then I have an off-topic as well if you want me to ask now or wait.
So, on something totally different, artificial intelligence. I know you said earlier in the week that you would like to see the federal government play a larger role in this. On some specifics, Bernie Sanders has introduced a bill that would create a nationwide moratorium on data centers. Is that something you would support? Is that the type of increased federal presence you would like to see?
Mayor Mamdani: I think that's an important part of it. I don't think that that's the entirety of what we need to see from the federal government. Bernie has been an incredible leader in the conversation around artificial intelligence. What we are also talking about, however, is beyond data centers, the question of pacing the frontier, as it's been described over these past few days and weeks and months.
What are the federal government's policies to ensure that this rapidly advancing technology is going to be regulated as opposed to just simply determined through a profit motive or through the decisions of a few individualized companies that will or will not have an IPO sometime soon?
Question: Beyond a moratorium on data centers, what's some other specifics you would like to see?
Mayor Mamdani: I think we need to see policies that have to do with the pace of development. We need policies that respond to the Hugging Face incident. We need to see ones that respond to the assertion from the head of Anthropic that the Hugging Face incident has occurred at every single AI company.
And we need to see an answer to these concerns that are shared by Americans from across the country, beyond, "We are in an arms race with countries from across the world." We're talking about companies that are bringing up the end of humanity as a possible outcome of this technology, and it has been a very flip response to that level of concern. And to your first question - can you repeat your first question one more time?
Question: Well, these drops in enforcement by the NYPD on moving violations-
[Crosstalk.]
Question: Why is that happening? Will you actually order your NYPD to step it up?
Mayor Mamdani: Every single member of our task force, all the 19 members - which in our administration for the first time also includes the FDNY - are going to be partners in actually delivering on Vision Zero Reimagined.
And what that means is we're going to take a hard look at how best we can change behavior that we're seeing in violation of our street safety laws and then utilize that. That includes the PD; that includes the other 18 members as well.
Question: Two quick questions - good, thank you. One, just clarify for me if you can, sir, just out of the, you know, the safety policies here, what can technically be done this week or this - today or this month without changing state law? And then also my second question: we had a particularly violent week in the Bronx, some eight wounded. Just any reaction, sir, to the increase in violence?
Mayor Mamdani: So, on your first question, some of the key focuses are continuing the actions we're taking and escalating the scale and the speed of them. So, for example, Sammy's Law is something that we've spoken about. Thus far, we've rolled out 215 miles per hour slow zones. We are going to deliver, by the end of this calendar year, 800, and then by the end of the first term, 2,300. That does not require any additional authorization.
Additionally, when it comes to super-speeders, we do not need additional authorization from Albany. We are now working with the Council and partner agencies to develop that legislation and that infrastructure so that the small number of drivers that are repeatedly violating street safety laws will be held accountable.
Beyond that, also moving from an approach of daylighting from sign-only to hardened daylighting. The importance of this is that we've seen that have the greatest effect and actually creating safety for New Yorkers.
So, these are a few of the examples of what we're pursuing right now. There are others like pedestrian zones. Those are going to be ones that we're going to expand and expound on in the street safety plan - sorry, in the plan that is forthcoming later this year with Commissioner Flynn.
And then to your other question, we are both proud of the work that the NYPD has been doing, as well as partner agencies, to drive down murders and shootings. And we will also never be satisfied until we completely eliminate crime in this city. And so, when we hear the news, as we have been over these past few days, of shootings in the Bronx, this will continue to be a concern from us, and how we can deliver on that - it's going to be through increased attention from the PD as well as work with our CMS partners.
Question: This is actually on-topic. Part of the plan looks at larger vehicles and how to discourage them, including possibly increasing tolls on them going to the city. I know you're just exploring that, but is that, I mean, I read that as maybe increasing congestion pricing for bigger cars. Is that something you're looking at?
And then also - sorry, second related question - another thing it looks at is bringing city control over self-driving cars. Do you have a vision for, like, Waymo's in the city in the future? Is that something that you think is going to happen during your term?
Mayor Mamdani: My vision is for keeping New Yorkers safe and also of ensuring that we're protecting the livelihoods of so many of the drivers who have helped to power this city over many, many years.
And then to your first question, before I was the mayor, I was an Assembly Member in Astoria and Long Island City. And I saw a number of times where the presence of trucks on these small, narrow roads were ones that could have fatal consequences.
There was a woman who was actually killed riding a Citi Bike by a large-scale truck just a couple of blocks away from my district office. And so, yes, we are exploring every potential avenue to discourage heavier and larger vehicles because, as we've seen over the last few years, cars across our country have gotten much, much bigger, and sometimes they've gotten to a level of size where there isn't even a safety component; where the driver cannot even see a child walking across them because it's not even present in their windshield.
Question: Actually, I'm on-topic as well. So, when it comes to enforcement, you know, you've spoken a lot about how you guys are going to crack down on drivers and when it comes to that super-speeder bill, but are you guys also looking at potentially installing more speed cameras places in order to ramp up enforcement?
And then you said a lot of the details are going to come out later in your transportation commissioner's plan. When is that going to be released again? And is there - are you going to be holding another event? Thank you.
Mayor Mamdani: That will be released soon, and yes, that will, much to Max's chagrin, come with another event. And I think to your first question, for us, it's about how do we hold those who are violating the law accountable. If it's a New Yorker who's buying an e-bike that goes at 35 miles an hour from one of the dozens of retailers, we want to hold that retailer accountable, stop them from selling that e-bike. If it's a small number of New Yorkers that are repeatedly found using ghost plates and speeding and operating their vehicle recklessly, then yes, it's the utilization of the super-speeder program.
Again and again, we have seen far too often a response to horrific tragedy across the city, as if it is simply part of the cost of doing business here. And we can never grow numb to families who are shattered. You know, just as we were switching to off-topic, a mother from Families for Safe Streets looked at me and pointed at a photo of her child and said, "It's his birthday tomorrow." And they will not be able to celebrate that birthday.
We heard from a 12-year-old speaking about how he never met his older sister. This is what we have tolerated. And we are proud of the fact that, yes, the number of traffic fatalities have reduced since the launch of Vision Zero, and we are still speaking of fatalities beyond 200 every single year. So, we know that there is more work to be done, and we look forward to doing it. Thank you all very much.
