Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Unveils Vision Zero Reimagined to Make Streets Safer for Every New Yorker
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceFast 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceJust 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWell, 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceTwo 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.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, 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.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceAnd 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceNo, 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—
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceDo 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.]
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI 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?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI 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?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceEvery 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceMy 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.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThat 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. ###
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Unveils Vision Zero Reimagined to Make Streets Safer for Every New Yorker.