“HOPE ISN’T ENOUGH!” Mamdani Sends Republicans a Blunt Warning Ahead of the Midterm Elections

I want to begin by thanking all those who have joined us today, the elected officials, advocates, community leaders, and countless others who have dedicated themselves to the work of building a safer city. And I want to take a moment to recognize those who would give anything not to be here with us today, the families and loved ones of New Yorkers who were killed on our streets, who have known too much pain and anguish because of dangerous roads like this one. On the stage, there are a number of leaders, both inside and outside of our administration. I want to recognize a few of them in the knowledge that there are far more than I can ever name. We have our DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn, who is here joining us. We have our council member, Alexa Aviles, who is here with us. Our state senator, Andrew Ginnardis, who is here with us. Our assembly member, Marcela Martinez, who is here with us. We also have the Families for Safe Streets co-chair, Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio, who is here with us, a Sunset Park community member, as well as a CEC20 member. I want to thank PS506 and PS503 for hosting us. I also want to thank Principal Daniel Castro for all that has been done to allow for this to take place. And I want to acknowledge and thank all of the parent leaders, the NYU Langone staff, the social services organizations, the community board members, the advocates, and the community members who are standing here with us today. Fernando Trejo had four young children, cheered for the Yankees. Hugo Alexander Sinto Garcia had immigrated to our city from Guatemala and delivered bagels across Brooklyn from Bagels by the Park. M. Samoilevich loved to teach visual arts to children and yoga to adults. Clara Kang and Jai Jung were nurses, both at NYU Langone Hospital, just a few blocks away. Waukee Knight saw opportunity everywhere he looked. In the music he made, in the sneaker business he ran, in the food he cooked, in the young men he mentored. The names go on and on. Abdul Bashar, Ke Xun Chen, Brendan Gill, Anthony Watts, Fachu Lin, and so many more. each of these New Yorkers was killed here in Sunset Park. Each of these New Yorkers was killed on Third Avenue, one of the most dangerous roadways in our city. And frankly, I must say that I am tired of learning the names of New Yorkers only after they were killed in preventable crashes. I am tired of New Yorkers only having their names printed in the newspaper because of the tragedies that took their lives instead of the lives that they should have gone on to live. I and so many others who call this city home, I'm tired of the death and devastation that has become all too common here in Southern Brooklyn. On this road where traffic screams past pedestrians and people are frankly afraid to cross it. And I'm struck by the words of a woman who saw the crash that took Jiayi Zheng's life. I feel so bad. I can't take it anymore. 17 people have been killed on 3rd Avenue over the past decade. Too many New Yorkers know someone who never made it home. Too many of our neighbors stepped out for school drop-off or to pick up groceries and woke up in the hospital. Too many parents feel a pit in their stomach each time their kids leave the house to play. And for too long, the families of New Yorkers killed on 3rd Avenue have been forced to carry an immense, unending grief. The grief of mourning someone they loved with all their hearts, and the heartbreak of recounting the worst days of their lives to those with the very power to deliver change, only to know that they will have to return to the same office a year later reopen the same barely healed wounds plead their case again and be met with the same devastating inaction today the change that so many Sunset Park residents have long called for finally arrives I am so proud to announce that beginning next year the department of transportation will heed the years-long calls of this community and redesign more than two miles of Third Avenue from 62nd Street to 20th street with pedestrian islands improved intersections and barrier protected bike lanes running in both directions as it currently stands any pedestrian seeking to cross from one side of Third Avenue to the other has to walk 150 feet the equivalent of half a football field with traffic speeding by with the new pedestrian islands as well as sidewalk and median extensions that distance will be cut by up to half. This is just one part of our commitment to transforming how New Yorkers navigate Sunset Park. We are also installing a two-way parking protected bike lane on 60th Street between 2nd and 4th Avenues, connecting a gap between protected bike lanes and improving safety near two local schools. I know that often in the past, projects like these have been announced on some distant time frame. Progress will come, New Yorkers are promised, just in time for your children's children. to be able to enjoy it that is not the case here we will begin work next year and we expect to complete the redesigns by the end of 2028 this work is a part of our larger commitment to building a New York City where traffic deaths are no longer part of daily life where dangerous drivers are no longer allowed to speed with impunity where the same business as usual approach that has killed too many of our fellow New Yorkers is no longer treated as normal that purpose lives at the heart of Vision Zero Reimagined, and it is our guide as we continue to strive for a city where we lower the number of traffic fatalities across the five boroughs to zero. I'm immensely proud of the progress that we have already achieved since taking office in January. We have improved other dangerous roadways like McGinnis Boulevard in North Brooklyn, where Greenpoint residents, just like New Yorkers here in Sunset Park, have long called for changes to an avenue that had killed so many of their neighbors. We lowered speed limits in hundreds of school zones with Sammy's law, protecting thousands of children. And since we sent cease and desist letters to companies selling illegal e-bikes that travel across our city at dangerously high speeds, more than 20,000 of those listings have been taken down. Today marks another great step forward, a tangible moment of progress that will protect pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike, and ensure that New Yorkers can get around our city safely. This is the work of building a better and safer city, and it is the obligation that each of us hold to our fellow New Yorkers who deserve nothing less in return. I will close with just one additional remark, which is a note of gratitude to all of the elected officials who represent Sunset Park. Andrew Gennardis, Alexa Aviles, Marcela Martinez have been pushing for the kind of leadership from City Hall that for too many years was missing. And it is such a pleasure to be able to come into office as the new mayor of our city and to have an opportunity laid forward by these elected officials and so I want to thank them for all of the work they did alongside this community for ensuring that we had a choice to make and it was one of the easiest choices we could ever make thank you how are you mayor so you have long said and commissioner flynn has long said that the principal danger to pedestrians on the roads of new york are cars and truck drivers and you mentioned it again today but the nypd has decreased its Vision Zero moving violations issued to car drivers by 41% since 2021. And instead, it's increasing its focus on cyclists. And I'm reading this from the NYPD, as they put it, to, quote, address the lethal challenge of new e-mobility devices. So given what you've said about the lethal challenge of cars and truck drivers, why is your police department carrying out policies that seem to be contrary to your own statements? So our conversations are always continue when it comes to the NYPD's traffic enforcement. One of the things that we were proud to do early on in our tenure was to change the different ways in which we were treating infractions by drivers as well as cyclists, creating a consistent level of parity there. The other aspect of this is that we are looking more and more to expand all the tools of enforcement that we have. You heard the state senator say it briefly in his remarks, but we are incredibly appreciative of the tools that champions like those on this stage have helped to deliver to the city, including those of red light cameras, because they have been found to be effective not only in catching those who are committing those traffic infractions, but more importantly, in driving down the number of those infractions. We've also seen this with Able or what is now known as Ace, the effective impact that it is having on those very areas. Separate from enforcement, I do also want to say that it is critically important for us to be pursuing infrastructure changes, transforming the streetscape, because so much of the streetscape, it also incentivizes certain infractions. We want to make sure that what we are incentivizing is safety and that we are expecting there to be a mistake every now and then from someone who is operating their bicycle or their car or whatever it may be, and that that mistake doesn't cost somebody's life. And so I want to really appreciate the work of our commissioner and the entire DOT in ensuring that this is a plan that takes seriously the concerns that businesses put forward about conflict at the curb and did not use it as a justification to reduce safety for cyclists or pedestrians, instead using it as an opportunity for imagination of reciting those same bike lanes towards the median. That is a continued conversation. The goal is always to protect every new yorker no matter their mode of transit do we have other on-topic questions okay we'll go in the third row over here sorry if you could just wait for the microphone i think commissioner Hi Commissioner Joe Torres from Channel Seven, congratulations first of all on doing these necessary changes in the process of getting this done and approved did you run into any jurisdictional challenges or obstacles with the New York State DOT in terms of making it happen and if so what were they and how did you overcome them thanks for that question, no we have a great partnership and working relationship with our state partners including State DOT uh the fact that they need to be able to have access to maintain the structure was absolutely one of our design considerations and so we made sure that we coordinated with them on that midterms less than a week away yes uh the president barnstorming the country, AOC barnstorming the country do you plan on barnstorming the country and do you have any predictions for this upcoming elections will Democrats take the House and Senate and will you support I know it's like a triple loaded question will you support Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker you have considerable influence with many predicted new incoming members of the House yes uh to to your third question to your second question I'm hopeful I'm hoping and praying that Democrats take back the House and that we win the Senate as well and this is always that time where hope and anxiety meet and it is a question of who prevails what I would always say to others is that hope will not win the election however the action that comes from hope can't and this is really a moment where there are a lot of elections that are very very close uh and could really be decided over the next week or so and in terms of barnstorming my plan is to barnstorm New York City uh it's been a real pleasure to be going alongside Governor Hochul uh and canvassing for her re-election people are excited by a track record of delivering universal child care for two-year-olds for the first time in our city's history that is something that would not have been possible without her support they are shocked by her opponents insistence that if he were to win he would cancel that program and his labeling of the parents who benefit from it as lazy and sitting at home and watching the view and finally we've also been having a lot of conversations around artificial intelligence and one thing that i've really appreciated about the governor is the moratorium that she put in place for the construction of large scale data centers. And what you've also heard from her opponent is a continued insistence that data centers are something that should be a key part of what the immediate medium term and long term future of the state is. And it is completely out of step with that of the people of the state, two thirds of whom are in opposition to the construction of those data centers. Just to clarify the travel piece of it, just New York City, you won't be going up to like New York 17 or even new york 21 or any any in-state travel as of now my focus is is on the five boroughs that's where it's tended to be uh i'm excited for it thank you okay we'll just go next to Joniky from Politico hi mr mayor hi Joniky how are you good um a couple questions it did the nypd commissioner sign off on you using the nypd police academy gym in queens to play late night basketball and if not who told your office that it was an okay use of the space And then secondly, who have you been playing these games with? Five people who are better than me at basketball, which is also not very difficult. What I will say is there are a lot of people who have come away from that article thinking that I'm much better at basketball than I am. But when it comes to your question, I'd always been told that late-night pickup at this facility would be of no disruption to recruits, and I would never want to interfere with training at the academy. me and if my use of the facility were to ever cause a disruption then i would find somewhere else to play okay thanks we'll go next to Alyssa Haley. Hi Mr. Mayor, hi, how are you? I'm good, thank you two quick ones about horse carriages that was passed by the city council last week. Um, will your administration pursue offering some form of compensation for those in the industry and secondly, um, as you know the legislation leaves a lot of like the technical issues in terms of what's next in your court for your administration to figure out was that your preference and something you had requested in conversations to be able to take the lead on figuring out like different jobs for horse carriage drivers, I think to your first question yes, to your second question our preference throughout all the conversations was how to sunset this industry while protecting the livelihoods of the workers who have built their lives around this industry and so that is what a lot of the focus is of our internal facing conversations is how to fulfill that for every single one of those who've been building their lives around this. What might that compensation look like? I think that's the subject of the conversation, but it is one that we want to be real and tangible. Thank you. Now we have a question from News 12 in the back, right behind Saheeli. Hi, Edric Robinson with News 12. Hi, how's it going? I was actually on topic. I was just about the intersection here. Were the lights considered, because some of the neighbors are telling me the timing of the lights was an issue more than anything else they felt like it was too fast was that considered when the plan went in place to redesign this uh Third Avenue, you know with that I'm gonna ask if the DOT commissioner is still present that he can come and speak to you about the specificity of the lights, do we have our DOT commissioner here so no, I think he's off to continue the work of DOT, we'll get back to you on the question of the lights, thank you. Okay, we have time for a few more, um, we'll go well over actually before we do that I've just heard from the esteemed council member that yes that was a part of the consideration wonderful okay we'll go to that is a part of the plan yeah hello mr mayor hi how's it going from cbs news new york how's it going good good how are you doing well um so this question is actually on behalf of Marsha Kramer who uh couldn't be here today we love Marsha i'm just going to read it verbatim she wants to know uh why are you looking to replace miss Linda Tegani from the commission on racial equality or equity excuse me uh there are reports that you had a tumultuous relationship with her can you talk about that? Absolutely. You know, Linda has served a full term of three years in this position. And even though that term has come to an end, we all owe her a debt of gratitude for the work that she has done to advance racial equity across the city. And alongside the city council, we have agreed to extend her term to next summer. And we're excited to work with the same council to put forward Christopher Alexander as the next commissioner to pick up the mantle that Linda is going to leave behind and to continue to provide the steadfast leadership the commission deserves as well as that new yorkers deserve and just a little bit about christopher he's someone who has spent his career advancing this very cause of racial equity someone who has currently has been leading the naacp new york conference as well as the work that he did to implement the legalization of cannabis across the state and i'm confident in his abilities to advance this work as well as his ability and capacity to hold us accountable should we waver in it thank you Thank you. Okay, we have time for one more. We're going to go to Kelly from New York One. Hi, Mr. Mayor. Hi, Kelly. How's it going? I'm doing well. I wanted to ask you about the curb act that's causing some controversy in the city council. This is something that you've been after when it comes to the SRG and disbanding them. I wanted to know your position on that bill. Many of your allies in the council are pushing for this. I mean, do you think that this bill should come up for at least a hearing in the council? Do you support the bill? And where do you stand as of today on disbanding the SRG? So I continue to be where I've been in support of disbanding the SRG, in support of decoupling our city's response from terrorism threats, from its response to First Amendment activity. And that continues to be the subject of internal conversations and a commitment that we will fulfill for New Yorkers to protect their First Amendment rights while also keeping them safe. And when it comes to Council Member Osei's legislation it is one that we are supportive of the spirit of and we've been having conversations around specific language but we're excited to see the work that he's been doing and the work council members have been doing to that end subscribe to one india and never miss an update download the one india app now