 Good morning everyone, hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful day, right? And we are here standing with our leaders, someone that everyone knows, he's committed to getting done. And that's why normally he'd been having conversation with so many mayor across the nation where he also shared with them what we are doing here in New York City. But also learning from the city. But the mayor is working so hard to be sure that we address traffic violence. We are here today to make an exciting traffic safety announcement and to celebrate the fantastic redesign that you see here on the 8th Avenue in Manhattan. The OT is working every day to end traffic violence, following Mayor Adam's vision to make the New York City safer for everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. It's my great pleasure to welcome our leader, the Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much Commissioner. Commissioner came in to office, not only from the city council, has been the transportation chair of his vision around open streets, his vision around bike lanes, his vision around redesigns of intersection. It was the right pick and the right time for someone that fully understood the impact of traffic crashes. And it's hard to believe when I think about how far we have come back when I was a state senator, teaming up with so many advocates. It was unheard of when we were advocating to decrease our speeding limit here in the city. Many people thought it was impossible, but we forged ahead. And I wanna thank those early advocates who really understood how important it was to rethink how we use our streets. Our streets are different from today. It's not just a car, only a car center environment. We have everything from bicyclists, walkers, our senior population, those who are living with disabilities. How we use these streets are really going to determine how we define as a city. Traffic safety is public safety. There's no consolation when you lose a loved one due to a traffic fatality that we feel as though we have accomplished it. Thank you, you love, you love. This is great about New York. So it's a real opportunity to keep forging ahead with ways of redesigning our streets. And that's what we did. Today, Promise Kep earlier this year, Commissioner Rodriguez and his team and I announced that we will be fixing and making safety improvements at 1,000 intersections. The most dangerous intersections across our city was something we knew that was important and we wanted to accomplish. And we're proud to announce that we met our goals and are exceeding them. We have completed upgrades at over 1,200 intersections. And this is a major victory for New Yorkers, it saved lives. And I want to thank everyone that's involved, particularly I want to really thank Christine Bertet and Tom Harris from Times Square Alliance. Without whose initial vision and partnership this transformation project will never have occurred. Thank you very much for that. We know if our streets aren't safe, our city cannot be considered a safe city. And upgrading our intersections and making them safer is how we save lives. We want to save lives and ensure that our city is a safe place to walk and enjoy this amazing space and amazing city. And we're not done yet. There's so much more to do as we continue to send a clear message that we have a zero tolerance for traffic crashes. We're expanding our goal. We're meeting a new mark. We're raising a bar against ourselves. We are making sure that, boy, you gotta love New York, man. We're making sure that we meet 1,400 intersection by the end of this year. So we're gonna push ourselves forward. We are the city that never sleeps. I was out here last night, you know, and just watching thousands of people walking a city so traffic safety can never sleep if we are a city that's never sleep. In fact, we can't even take a nap. Crashes at intersections account for, hey, listen to this number. Because this is so important. This was what the commissioner and I looked at and really resonated with us. Crashes at intersections account for 50% of all fatalities and 70% of all injuries. If we zero in on these dangerous intersections, we could have a real impact. Also, they also include 55% of pedestrians of issues that we're facing and 79% of pedestrian injuries. So oftentimes we focus on the actual death, but so many people are injured, so many people are traumatized, and that is why we want to have a holistic approach to this issue. This intersection right here, 46th Street and 8th Avenue is among some of the busiest in Midtown. This is the theater district, restaurant, row. I spend so much time walking these streets, speaking to tourists. We want tourists here, and just as a side note, any tourists that's here that's listening to this, we only ask one thing of you, spend money, spend money, spend a lot of money. What's up, brother? We made changes here this year, wider pedestrian space, safer crosswalks, and shorter crossings, and a better protected bike lane as you see here. The vast majority of the people on 8th Avenue are on either two feet or two wheels. More and more people are biking, more and more people are walking, more and more people are getting their steps in. And we want to ensure their safety as we move forward. But let's be clear, here in New York City, we have a, and we'll continue to have a zero tolerance for traffic violence and all violence. These upgrade, and the intersections that we are upgrading, are going to reduce the risk of traffic violence on our streets. These are real projects with real results. And we are not just stopping here. We are taking traffic violence head on and continuing to ensure that we do the things that are important to make this happen. It was a real victory in Albany. We got to 24, seven, 24 hours a day, seven day a week. Cameras, traffic cameras, speed cameras, that was crucial. We, the results show speed cameras saved lives. And it was a huge victory, we want to thank again the commissioner and his team. Where our money, where the problem is. We have invested nearly $1 billion to fund additional protected bike lanes, faster and reliable public transportation, and improved pedestrian infrastructure. New York City must be safe for pedestrians, for cyclists, for motorists, for everyone that use our system, as well as our mass transit system. And this is how we're going to do so. This is how we're going to continue to protect New Yorkers. This is possible, and we're going to continue to have our North Star as being a zero tolerance for traffic crashes. Again, I thank you, commissioner, you and your team that's here and all the advocates, and I know we're in the district of just a great council person. And I don't know if you have them in the speaking order, but I want to make sure that before we conclude that we get councilman Eric Boucher to say a few words as well. Okay, come on, let's give out another round of applause to Mayor Erickani. I'm Mr. Mayor, there's two tourists here from London, yes, waiting for you to finish. They wanted to hear. You know, what are we doing in New York City to improve safety? So thank you, not only for passing by by standing in here, the good work that we are doing here at DOT. So you heard the most important things from the mayor. You are going to be here adding a few more things. We're here today, as the mayor said, to Ananda we have achieved. And it's setting our commitment to improve 1,000 intersection citywide. It is not easy, 8.6 million New Yorkers, 8.6 million different opinion. But we know that when it comes to achieving a goal, we work together. That's why we are celebrating together with the advocate that we overpassed. And we got the number, no, it's on a thousand, but we went above 200s. We know that there's a lot more work to be done. This is just the beginning of this administration commitment to driving down traffic depths. DOT has redesigned 313 intersections. Either we return common treatments that slow turning drivers or through complete redesign as part of our streets improvement project. One of the shining samples of this work is right here on Bay Avenue. We have this year reclaimed about half of the streets for petitions and cyclists. We have, and that's all you will see on the mayor's add-in and us, reimagining the use of public space. We have this year reclaimed again this area. We have dramatically expanded sidewalk space while reducing what was once a wide avenue to just two travel lanes. This project not only make our streets safer, but they create more welcoming and vibrant streets. And in a city always concerned with noise, the streets is now even quieter. Like the mayor added, I want to specifically contain Christine Berther and Tom Harris of Times Square Alliance for the leadership and partnership in achieving this incredible fit and project. But we have done more than that. We have also improved nearly 500 more intersections with signal upgrade. A great job that the advocate has been asking for many years and we've been able to do it. This includes the installation of new traffic signals. The addition of leading pedestrian intervals, which give pedestrians and cyclists a head start to cross the street. And the installation of new left turn signal, treatment to create dedicated time for left turns and intersections. This year, yes, thank you to all you. This year we have installed a stop sign at more than 340 intersection citywide. That's a record. This is the highest number of always stop sign installation in a single year. We have also installed more race crosswalks than ever before. Working jointly with the Department of Design and Construction. We are on pace to install 40 race crosswalks in 2022. That's seven times the number we installed last year. A big change. And finally, we are well on our way to daylight 100 intersection with new bike horrors by the end of the year. This great initiative not only improves safety for all, but it provides dedicated space for convenience bike storage. We have completely 32 day lighting so far and we will have many more installed as we near the end of our year. This work is saving lives. But we are not ready to celebrate. We had a difficult year with overall traffic fatalities. This is what this administration inherited. But a bright spot has been that we have had among the fewest pedestrians fatality this year in record history. Again, one loss is too many for this administration. But when we segregate the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists, their numbers is lowest, one to the lowest year. The number go higher because drivers are speeding, especially in the highway. We are doing everything we can to address reckless driving through commitments like this and other major efforts, like the launch of 24-7 speed camera this summer. Yes, we don't want a driver to get one ticket. And that's why most of them, more than 70% when they get a second ticket, they don't get the third one. We want to change the control. We want to change the way on how they drive. So we are tackling traffic violence from all angles. Any loss of life on our streets is unacceptable. And we are excited to build on these momentous going forward. Nosotros entendemos de que con el alcalde medio arre, nosotros estamos logrando hacer de Nueva York una ciudad segura para los peatones y los ciclistas. Una ciudad que va a seguir utilizando más iniciativa, como la que estamos aquí mirando. Vamos a seguir rediseñando las intersecciones. Vamos a seguir dándole más tiempo a los peatones cuando ellos van a cruzar la calle en este momento. I'd like to thank all the other dedicated staff who all have in some way contributed to making this intersection safer, like the one in New York this year. Mr. Mayor, thank you for allowing me to put together the best leadership team that any agency can have. Javi, Margaret, Fugori. You know, on my first day of prayer, you know, Apollo, Chowa, Julie, Bero, and having the great Ryan Lynch, being my chief staff, they're the one that together with Eric Bickton and the whole planning group, they are doing all the work. So let's give them a big round of applause for the great job that they're doing. So we were here from, first of all, I'd like to acknowledge Danny Harris, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, Don Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance. And now we're in Eric, of course, Butcher, who we worked together in his previous role, and now as a council member. And now let's hear from Christine Bertha, who we have been a great leader when it comes to transportation. So checkpads are our organization for pedestrian safety. We've been working for, with my co-chair, Martin Treat, who is in a wheelchair. We've been working for 15 years to try to get more safety as intersection and wider pedestrian walking. And, you know, this took this mayor and Idanis Rodriguez to get it done. They get stuff done. So this is very, very impressive. This is an enormous amount of space. And what you don't know is during at six o'clock at night or at five o'clock, this is covered with an enormous volume of pedestrian which are all going to the bus terminal. And you can't, you can't move here. So this is not luxury. This is a necessity. And it has been a necessity for a long time and we're really, really delighted. We just want to give accolades to, and it's also very useful for our friends on wheelchairs because this is all flat. You can go from end to end and it is very comfortable to be on that surface. And finally, they have fantastic staff and the pedestrian unit has done a fantastic job and I want to give them an accolade. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now let's hear from the local council member, council member Eric Butcher. I really want to congratulate Mayor Adams and Commissioner Marvigas. Being mayor is a tough, tough job. Mayor of New York City, us New Yorkers, we're a tough bunch. We are not slow to talk about the things that we don't like, but we're sort of hesitant to give credit when good things happen. But this is a huge, huge accomplishment that should be celebrated. 1,200 intersections redesigned for pedestrians since this mayor took office in January. I really want to thank the mayor and Commissioner Marvigas for this great achievement and the people here locally who've been helping to make progress on this issue. We've got Kathleen and Martin Treet, Christine Bertet. I hear about these community boards around the city that are fighting pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure. But here in New York, in our district, rather it's the opposite, with community board four, they're always pushing for more and more street safety. So we're really, really lucky. I've been focused as a council member, just like the mayor has on, like a laser on making New York a better place to live, work and visit. We should be honing in on that as government on the basics, making New York a better place to be. And people aren't going to want to be here if the streets are dangerous, if the intersections are dangerous, if we're in four lane, if each avenue is a four lane highway. So look up and down 8th Avenue. We got room for pedestrians, cyclists and cars. It's a much more pleasant corridor. Let's do this all over the city. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. I want to acknowledge also the other members of DOT that have been doing a lot of great job on this place, on this project and many other. Chris Cabill, Dan Wagner, Sara Ahmed, Jennifer Harris, Hernandez, and Col. Shun Queens. It's getting a bit of applause. Great job, guys. And Family for Safety Street. As you know, like they are the one who is leading, you know, this work. They are the one that they have lost the loved one. So when anyone has any question about why are you doing this pedestrian? Why are you doing this open street? Why are you making all those changes? For me, it's about going here the story of those members of the Family for Safety Street that they have lost the loved one and you understand and you will change the way or how you think the use of our street. So with that, I'm going to bring you to all my press conferences. I'm sorry. You're in New York, guys. Say that a little louder. Yes, I love that concept. And there's a way to do it. Number one, we have to have a safe, reliable, affordable public transportation system. Buses, trains, and so much new technology and method of movement that we're going to be rolling out. So, yes, I think that you're going to see an evolution of how these cities operate to clean our environment, to make sure it's safer. I believe there are more ways to do so. And I think long term, will it be in my time in office? I doubt that, but clearly you're going to see a more reliable transportation infrastructure and you're going to really minimize the amount of vehicles that are used on our streets. I think that's where we're going. And when you look at other cities across the globe, they're leaning in that direction as well. Okay. Thank you.