New York City Mayor Eric Adams today outlined his bold vision from Harlem to Hollis for all in his first State of the City address, delivered at the historic Kings Theatre in Brooklyn.
In the speech, the mayor reviewed key achievements of the Adams administration from his first 100 days in office and previewed a range of his ambitious plans to promote an equitable recovery, lift up our youth, invest in 21st-century infrastructure, and create a safer and more just city. He also unveiled a balanced, $99.7 billion fiscal year 2023 (FY23) executive budget, which combines upstream investments with fiscally responsible measures, including budget reserves at $6.3 billion — the highest level in city history.
“We are still in a time of profound concern — but the spirit of New York, and the people who call it home, will always endure,” said Mayor Adams. “As we look toward the future, our administration will build on the achievements of our first 100 days and continue to ‘Get Stuff Done’ for everyday New Yorkers. The bold agenda we are laying out will address the city’s overlapping crises with upstream investments focused on a safer, healthier, and more prosperous future for all of us. We are ready to start a new, hopeful chapter in New York City history, and we will do it together.”
Creating A Safer And More justices City
Mayor Adams has repeatedly stressed that public safety and justice are the prerequisites to prosperity and must go hand in hand.
In January, he rolled out his “Blueprint to End Gun Violence,” laying out concrete steps at the city, state, and federal level to dam the rivers that feed the sea of gun violence.
The following month, he released the “Subway Safety Plan,” a multiagency effort in partnership with the state to address public safety concerns and connect unhoused people and those struggling with serious mental illness with the supports they need.
As part of the city’s effort to address the ongoing crisis of gun violence, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in March began to deploy Neighborhood Safety Teams to the areas that account for 80 percent of all shootings citywide. As a whole, the NYPD has removed nearly 2,300 guns from the streets since Mayor Adams took office.
To build on these important steps, Mayor Adams today announced additional resources for the Subway Safety Plan, including $55 million in FY23 to expand the Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD) initiative — which deploys mental health professionals instead of law enforcement to respond in certain cases to people experiencing mental health crises — to Central Brooklyn, Eastern Queens, and currently uncovered areas in the South Bronx. The administration also plans to propose $171 million in FY23 to add 1,400 new Safe Haven and stabilization beds by mid-2023 to help unsheltered New Yorkers transition off the streets and out of the subway system into more stable housing.
Promoting An Equitable Recovery
More than two years after the first COVID-19 case was identified in New York City, the city continues to face an uneven recovery. Mayor Adams is committed to building an equitable, inclusive recovery for all New Yorkers — one that directly addresses the longstanding inequities that were exacerbated by the pandemic.
Several weeks ago, he joined elected officials and community leaders to celebrate the enhancement of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in the state budget, fulfilling his campaign pledge to bolster the social safety net and expand services for working families in New York City.
More than 800,000 families will benefit from this EITC increase, supported in part by a $250 million annual commitment by the city. And last month, the mayor unveiled his “Renew, Rebuild, Reinvent: A Blueprint for New York City’s Economic Recovery,” which proposes 70 concrete initiatives to revitalize the city’s economy and get New Yorkers back to work.
A key recommendation advanced in the report called for doubling down on investments in the burgeoning life sciences industry.
To that end, Mayor Adams today announced a major new partnership with Taconic and DivcoWest, together with New York University, to bring new space to 455 First Avenue that will support cutting-edge research, entrepreneurial training programs, and workforce development.
The city is also working to bring new space online at the Alexandria Center, completing the last of three life sciences towers that have anchored the industry for over a decade.
Together, these two projects will nearly double lab space in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, helping cement it as a major hub for the life science industry in New York City.
In addition, the administration is committing $140 million in capital funds beginning in FY23 for the Hunts Point Produce Market, which supplies 25 percent of the city’s fresh produce. The funding, another key component of the economic blueprint, will help improve the surrounding infrastructure and neighborhood parks at the facility. Mayor Adams also announced $5 million in FY23 to help the City University of New York train students for the most in-demand skills and connect them to good jobs at companies that are hiring, including high-growth sectors like life sciences, the green economy, technology, and advanced manufacturing.
Lifting Up Our Youth
Mayor Adams is committed to providing greater support for families and young people, who represent the future of New York City.
Thanks to the administration’s leadership, Governor Hochul and state lawmakers agreed to historic investments in child care in the most recent state budget.
In addition to committing $4 billion toward expanding affordable childcare for New Yorkers, new city tax incentives authorized by the state will spur the creation of up to 17,000 new child care seats in New York City.
In order to ensure child care is affordable and accessible for working families in New York City, Mayor Adams announced that new rates will go into effect in June that will dramatically reduce the fees that eligible families currently pay for subsidized care.
The administration is also committed to reducing the bureaucratic hurdles families face when seeking child care, which is why Mayor Adams also revealed that the first major application of the mayor’s proposed “MyCity” platform will be a single, unified application process for all subsidized child care options offered by the city.
Children of all ages in the city have been significantly impacted by the disruptions stemming from COVID-19. As New York City students continue to struggle with learning loss due to the pandemic, Mayor Adams is committing $101 million in FY23 for summer activities for 10,000 more K-12 students in the Summer Rising program, which provides hands-on summer learning and enrichment courses to strengthen students’ academic, social, and emotional skills.
This investment brings the number of slots funded by New York City Department of Youth and Community Development to 110,000, for a total program capacity of 210,000 slots.
As someone who struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability, Mayor Adams is also committed to giving students with learning disabilities the tools they need to succeed.
Today, he unveiled an unprecedented investment of $7.4 million in FY23 to fund new dyslexia screening sites and literacy programs.
Mayor Adams also announced $33 million for the New York City Department of Education to launch new career pathways programs starting this September focused on high-growth sectors like health care and technology.
Investing In 21ST-Century Infrastructure
New York City’s built environment is constantly changing. As the city confronts new challenges, Mayor Adams believes the city must adopt a people-centered approach to infrastructure — especially for New Yorkers who have historically been underserved by critical infrastructure needs.
Earlier this week, he announced a historic investment of $904 million over five years — nearly $580 million in capital funding, as well as expense funding that ramps up to more than $65 million annually, or $327 million over five years — to advance the goals laid out in the “NYC Streets Plan” and rapidly build out critical street safety and public transportation infrastructure.
Accessing affordable, quality housing consistently ranks among New Yorkers’ top concerns.
That is why Mayor Adams announced that the city is making the largest-ever commitment to housing in the city’s history. The FY23 executive budget proposes $5 billion in capital funding to promote the creation and preservation of affordable housing.
This includes investing in the New York City Housing Authority Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program, as well as funding major in-unit repairs at Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens that Mayor Adams advocated for as Brooklyn borough president.
Public spaces have become vital lifelines during the pandemic.
Parks and green spaces not only provide important physical and mental health benefits but also are critical tools for promoting environmental justice.
That is why Mayor Adams’ FY23 executive budget provides $488 million in capital funding for park improvement projects, including planting 20,000 trees annually in the coming years to reduce citywide heat vulnerability, enhancing and adding new greenways in Brooklyn and Queens and rehabilitating critical infrastructure, including pools.
This new investment — combined with other funding to enhance and expand green space across the city — represents a down payment on the mayor’s “One Percent for Parks” pledge and showcases his commitment to parks equity.
The full text of the speech as prepared for delivery is provided below:
My fellow New Yorkers, we are here, together at last.
For two long years, we have lived in an alternate version of our city — separated from friends, family, and colleagues. Worried about going to work, worried about going to school, worried about staying healthy.
Our fear was justified. We saw over 40,000 of our fellow New Yorkers die of COVID-19. This pandemic was a mass tragedy unlike anything we have experienced in the modern era.
But New Yorkers never faltered. We adapted, we improvised, we looked out for each other, we endured.
Despite the fear, the trauma, the uncertainty, and the heartbreak, we kept going. Because every New Yorker knew in their hearts that our city would come back.
It’s already happening. I can feel it everywhere I go.
The state of the city is strong. Because New Yorkers have never been stronger.
We’ve been through a lot. We have struggled and survived.
After two years, we are ready to be together again — reunited and it feels so good.
We are still in a time of profound concern, and this city is prepared to keep New Yorkers safe and healthy no matter what the future brings.
But we have always known that our city will never be defined by loss and tragedy.
The spirit of New York City will always prevail. We saw that spirit in the millions of essential workers and city employees who kept us going throughout the pandemic.
We saw it just two weeks ago, when a gunman attacked our subway. Transit workers, first responders, police officers, and everyday New Yorkers took action to save lives and apprehend the suspect.
I want to thank all of you, especially those who are here with us today. Please, stand up.
You made us all proud to be New Yorkers that day.
Your courage and compassion are what this city is all about. It has sustained us through the first 100 days of this administration.
And courage and compassion are what we need to rebuild this city going forward. This is the way President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose to lead, and his example inspires me.
In the years after the Great Depression, America faced a cascade of crises not unlike what we are experiencing today.
Then, just as now, there was no easy solution or quick fix. FDR understood that the people needed an honest reckoning of the problems and bold plans to solve them.
That is what I intend to deliver for my fellow New Yorkers.
The truth is these first hundred days were not easy for our city. We have been tried and tested by some of the most historic difficulties and urgent crises this city has ever gone through.
The pandemic has hollowed out our economy and threatened peoples’ livelihoods, stability, and mental health. Housing prices remain out of the reach of the working people of this city. Too many of our brothers and sisters are living on the streets, in need of support and shelter. People are still dying from gun violence.
It breaks my heart over and over. It keeps me up night after night.
New Yorkers have a right to be angry, a right to expect more — to feel safe, to be safe, to know that your city is looking out for you, your family, and those in need.
That is why we went all in on ‘Getting Stuff Done’ during the first 100 days.
Let’s look at the numbers. In the first one hundred days:
We have taken almost 2,300 guns off the street.
We have added more than 50,000 jobs in the first three months of this year, significantly outpacing the national average.
The unemployment rate dropped to 6.5 percent in March, down from 7.4 percent in December 2021.
Hotel room demand is now at 86 percent of pre-pandemic levels, up from 63 percent in January of this year.
We have ensured more than 97 percent of adults in New York City have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Ninety-seven percent — that’s a number to be proud of.
We have seen a nearly 70 percent increase in school attendance and continuing low levels of COVID in our schools.
We have added nearly 1,000 new beds for homeless New Yorkers, moved 2,500 families into shelter, and placed another 2,700 New Yorkers into subsidized housing.
But this is only the start of our efforts to revitalize and rebuild this city. Now is the time to look to the future.
To get there, we need a vision, one that we can all share in.
My vision of our shared future is this:
A city of safety and abundance, with jobs, housing, and care for all.
A city where our children can play, breathe, and thrive, where education embraces the whole child and supports our families.
A city where we capitalize on the progress being made in new forms of energy, transit, and commerce.
A city that empowers people to live their best possible lives, with access to green space, healthy food, and preventative health care.
A city that is inclusive, fair, and responsive to those who call it home.
A city that inspires and welcomes all the world.
This is the city New Yorkers want and deserve, and it is all possible if we work together.
There are four main areas that we will focus on as we go forward: protecting our people, growing our economy, uplifting our youth, and building our infrastructure.
Our new budget reflects those values and provides for them.
This budget puts people — especially those who have often been left behind — front and center.
Success will be measured by how much we accomplish — not how much we spend.
First, some good news: Despite the massive shocks to our system in the past two years, our city enters fiscal year 2023 on strong financial footing.
This is the result of effective planning and fiscal responsibility. Earlier this year, we achieved a savings of almost $2 billion across two fiscal years through our successful program to eliminate the gap.
Since we released the preliminary budget in February, we have also seen an increase in revenues and found opportunities to roll federal funds into the next fiscal year. This will allow us to direct additional funding to programs that address our most urgent challenges.
As a result, the executive budget we release today is $99.7 billion.
Fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023 remain balanced, and we have manageable out-year gaps.
In our executive budget, we have achieved more than $400 million in savings over fiscal years 2022 and 2023.
We are adding $200 million to the rainy-day fund, bringing the total level of reserves to a new record of $6.3 billion in fiscal year 2023.
This successful management of our resources will allow us to increase investment in critical priorities and fund transformative new policies.
Most importantly, it will allow us to devote resources to upstream solutions — not only downstream demands. We must engage in building strong civic infrastructure that supports New Yorkers throughout their lives, not only in times of crisis.
There is no doubt in my mind that New York will make a full recovery and come back stronger and more resilient than before.
But this is only possible if we continue to make public safety our top priority.
Safety and justice are the prerequisites of prosperity. We cannot have a city where people are afraid to walk the streets, ride the subway, or send their children to school.
In our first 100 days, crime and tragedy took far too many lives in our city.
A deadly fire in the Bronx killed dozens of our neighbors and broke the hearts of our Gambian community.
And on Sunday, we lost two more New Yorkers: Carlos Richards, a young man trapped in a burning building in Canarsie, and one of our bravest, firefighter Timothy Klein, a six-year veteran of the Fire Department.
They are mourned by this city and their families. And the Fire Department will never forget the sacrifice of Firefighter Klein.
This city will always stand with our first responders — the men and women who protect this city.
Because keeping New Yorkers safe is essential to keeping this great city going strong.
There is still far too much violence in our city.
Black and Brown lives remain at risk, and hate crimes continue to be directed at our Asian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, and LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.
Our sister Michelle Go was pushed to her death in front of a train in an act of horrifying hatred.
Dozens more of our neighbors have been killed by gun violence.
Unhoused New Yorkers were shot while they were sleeping on the street.
An aspiring rapper was executed in cold blood.
A 19-year-old girl was killed as she worked the night shift in East Harlem.
We saw a grandmother wounded, six bullets in a young girl, an 11-month-old baby shot in the head.
And two of our police officers were shot dead responding to a call.
Their names will echo in our hearts forever: Kristal, Jayquan, Kade, Sally, Angellyah. Detectives Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera.
The families and loved ones of many of these New Yorkers are here with us today.
Please stand up — I want to speak directly to you.
I can only imagine the loss you feel and the pain you live with. But I will not rest until we have addressed the conditions that led to that loss. We will do what is necessary to make all of our communities safe. You have my word, as a former police officer, a fellow New Yorker, and your mayor.
That is why this budget includes funding for our ‘Blueprint to End Gun Violence,’ our plan to confront increased crime with strategic focus and realistic solutions.
The plan ensures the NYPD is laser-focused on apprehending the small number of individuals responsible for the majority of gun trafficking and shootings in our city.
And we are not going it alone.
Together in partnership with President Biden, Governor Hochul, and law enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal levels, we are working to cut off the flow of illegal guns into our city and crack down on repeat offenders.
We are also funding our ‘Subway Safety Plan,’ designed to provide our city with a transit system that is safe, reliable, and clean.
And yes, it is essential that we empower our police officers and focus on the downstream impacts of crime and disorder.
But what often gets less attention are the upstream solutions. These investments we are making in our most vulnerable brothers and sisters will help keep them and our entire city safe.
Because public safety is not just about police — it’s about people.
That is why this budget includes $55 million to expand the B-HEARD program, which stands for Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division. These are teams of EMTs and mental health professionals that respond to 911 calls involving mental health issues.
Not every emergency call needs a police response. The B-HEARD teams de-escalate tense situations and connect people in crisis to the care they need.
Our funding will expand this program to more high-need neighborhoods in Central Brooklyn, Eastern Queens, and the South Bronx.
We will also continue to support our crisis management teams and violence interrupters all over this city.
Some of them are here with us today. Please, stand up.
Your work is a proven part of reducing violent crime across our city, and we thank you for your commitment and courage.
Public safety also means supporting those who need a second chance.
That is why we are ensuring that every youth parolee will now have a mentor — someone to help guide them back to the right path after they have been incarcerated.
Public safety isn’t just about bringing down the crime rate. It’s about helping those who need it most, including those experiencing homelessness, many of whom are at risk from violence themselves.
That is why we are investing more than $170 million in 1,400 new beds at safe havens and other facilities designed to serve those who have the hardest time moving into traditional shelters.
And working with Speaker Adams and the City Council, we will continue to make this a top priority.
In addition to this increased capacity, our social service teams are expanding their work to connect New Yorkers in need to the services and housing options available to them.
Because it isn’t just about building more shelters — it’s about building trust.
This is the work so many in our city have done, and today I want to thank some of the individuals working every day to deliver housing and hope to those who need it most.
Will Shams DaBaron and Rob Robinson please stand.
I want to thank you for making sure our brothers and sisters who have lived through homelessness have a voice in our city.
Keeping New Yorkers safe is the key to economic recovery.
But we must also use this moment to reimagine our economic system to promote equity and address longstanding problems and historic injustices.
Make no mistake — we must restore the major drivers of our city’s economy, including the central business districts that have been critical engines of our success for centuries.
We are making big investments in the cleanliness and safety of our streets and supporting our businesses in Midtown, Lower Manhattan, and commercial corridors in every borough.
But we will not stop there. Our executive budget includes significant investments in jobs and opportunities across the city, including more than $140 million for major new capital investments at Hunts Point in the Bronx, renewed efforts to help our small businesses thrive, and expanded access to city funding for minority- and women-owned businesses.
These are just a few of the more than 70 concrete initiatives we have laid out for our city’s economic recovery.
But simply creating jobs is not enough. Too often, in the past, our city has not done enough to help young New Yorkers get the kind of jobs that will transform their futures.
If we want to tackle high unemployment in communities of color, we must actively create opportunity. That means educating our youth for the jobs for the future and providing direct on-ramps to those jobs.
That’s why our executive budget includes $5 million in fiscal year 2023 to help the City University of New York train students for the most in-demand skills and connect them to good jobs at companies that are hiring. They will partner with some of the largest employers in our fastest-growing sectors — including life sciences, green jobs, tech and advanced manufacturing.
That is what we mean when we talk about upstream solutions.
It also means investing in economic ecosystems where New Yorkers can access all the ingredients for jobs, innovation, and economic opportunity in one place.
That process is already underway all over the five boroughs.
In Manhattan, we are expanding the fast-growing life sciences and health care hub in Kips Bay.
Today, we are announcing that the city will be working with Taconic Partners, DivcoWest, and NYU to build new space on First Avenue for cutting-edge research, workforce training, and new startups.
We are also helping to bring more lab space online at the Alexandria Center, which has anchored our local biotech industry for over a decade.
Together, these two projects will nearly double lab space in Kips Bay and further establish it as the hub for life sciences in our city.
Meanwhile, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, we continue to grow emerging tech and manufacturing companies and connect young people to those opportunities through the Brooklyn STEAM Center.
On our working waterfronts in Sunset Park and Staten Island, we are establishing New York City as a global offshore wind hub to power our future and create thousands of jobs.
And across the water on Governors Island, we are building a new academic campus to research and test climate solutions for New York City and the entire world.
To support this hub of opportunity, the executive budget also includes new funding to expand ferry capacity at Yankee Pier, so that more New Yorkers can access the 7,000 jobs and educational opportunities we are creating on Governors Island.
Because our economy is not some abstract concept — behind every job is a worker that is driving our city into the future.
That’s why we must also recommit to protecting our city’s workers and supporting labor unions across our city.
Union power is people power. It keeps New York City going strong.
I know what it’s like to put on a uniform and work a shift in the service of others. And my administration is going to make sure our union members get the wages, rights, and care they deserve.
That’s why in my first 100 days, we delivered raises for essential gig workers.
And it’s why we are going to continue to stand in solidarity with working people.
New York City is the largest union town in America, and just a few weeks ago, this union town got even bigger — thanks to our brothers Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer, who successfully led the effort to unionize the Amazon warehouse on Staten Island.
Chris and Derrick, stand up — and thank you for standing up for your co-workers and inspiring working folks all across America.
Now, there are some critics who promote the view that City Hall cannot serve both working people and the business community.
But in fact, that is precisely the role of a fair and democratically elected leader.
You have heard me say many times that we do not need to choose between safety and justice.
But we also do not need to choose between protecting workers’ rights and supporting economic growth.
This administration will seek to find a balance that works for the majority of New Yorkers and keeps our economy strong.
Rebooting our economy is only one aspect of rebuilding our city for the future.
We must also take care of our young people and our families.
That is what I campaigned for and what I promised when I was elected. My ‘People’s Plan’ advocated for greater expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and more support for affordable child care in our city.
In the first 100 days, we have delivered on both of those promises.
Working in partnership with the governor, Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, Speaker Heastie, and my colleagues in the state Legislature, we are putting $350 million back into the pockets of working people through our expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
And thanks to those same colleagues in Albany, the state has committed $4 billion in funding for New York City child care over the next four years.
We have also secured authorization to implement tax incentives that will spur the private sector to create 17,000 new child care seats in our city.
In the coming weeks, we will be releasing our full plan for expanding child care, but I want to share some of those details today.
First, I want to announce that new rates will go into effect in June that will dramatically reduce the fees that eligible families currently pay for subsidized care.
A family of four earning $55,000 a year currently pays $55 a week for full-time subsidized care.
Starting June 1, that same family will pay just $10 per week.
We are also ensuring that families who have been waiting for child care get access to this critical support and that families in communities with the greatest need will get priority.
We have already begun reaching out to families on the city’s child care voucher waitlist and plan to connect with every family on that list by September.
We know that working parents don’t have time to navigate complex bureaucracy to get their children care, and we are going to make sure that city government works for them.
That is why I’m proud to announce that the first major application of our new “MyCity” web portal will be a unified application process for all subsidized child care options offered by the city.
Making quality child care more accessible will change lives, help our economy, and support our children and families
It is a responsibility that too often falls on the women of this city — a story I know all too well, watching my mother having to work two jobs while raising my five siblings and me.
The work of care is the work of life. It is essential work, and we are going to treat it that way.
In addition to our commitment to affordable child care, the budget we release today includes bold new initiatives that will support our students and improve our schools.
While all New Yorkers were impacted by the pandemic, our children and students are still feeling the effects of two years of grief, trauma, and learning loss.
We are proud that we successfully kept schools open and students safe, but we must do more for our young people, especially when it comes to helping them train for a career.
Because as I have often said, if you do not educate, you will incarcerate.
Our young people were not getting what they needed from our city when we came into office.
Student absenteeism was high, educator morale was low, and our children had fallen behind academically and socially.
That is why, during the first 100 days, we committed to expanding the Summer Rising program, which provides academic support, arts, recreation, and food to our students during the summer months.
In the executive budget, we are adding funding to increase the total Summer Rising program capacity to 110,000 K-8 students this year.
We also announced funding for a record 100,000 Summer Youth employment opportunities and allocated more resources to the Fair Futures program, which provides coaching and tutoring for youth in foster care.
We have also expanded our gifted and talented program to reach every school district and made it easier for families to access this program by providing two entry points in both kindergarten and third grade.
This is how we raise the bar and deliver opportunities for students in all five boroughs.
The budget we release today also includes more resources for our young people who are most in need.
I know from my own life the challenges that a learning disability creates for a child and how they can be overcome with early diagnosis and the right support.
That’s why we will be directing $7.4 million in funding to dyslexia screening sites and literacy programs across the city over the next three years.
We will also invest $11.2 million in our bilingual education programs and ensure every student has a pathway to multilingualism.
We will take a whole child approach, ensuring the food we serve our students supports their development and builds lifelong healthy habits.
And while we want to prepare students for college, we also know that there are many paths to a good job and a bright future for our youth. Many of our young people are ready to join the workforce sooner rather than later, and our education system should serve them too.
Four years of college may be the right choice for some, but we must invest in a full and fair range of career training for our youth and actively connect them with jobs and other opportunities upon graduation.
Starting this next school year, we will invest $33 million in career pathways programs that focus on high-growth sectors like health care and technology. We will expand these models citywide in subsequent years.
We will also expand apprenticeships and support universal career readiness and increase the number of high school students getting early college credit.
New York City students should be able to succeed no matter what path they choose to take, and this administration is committed to changing the way we think about education and setting our young people up for success.
By the way, none of this is possible without the continuation of strong mayoral accountability of schools.
That is why we are working with our colleagues in the state Legislature to make sure that we can continue to support all our students and teachers going forward.
And finally, we must lay the foundation for the future of the city itself.
Too often in the past, we saw physical changes to our city that did not benefit all of our communities.
And we must continue to create safer streets and reduce deaths from traffic violence.
That is why my administration will take a new approach and invest in infrastructure for the people.
We have used this first 100 days to begin building a safer, more accessible, sustainable city, including starting work to improve 1,000 intersections to increase safety with better traffic signals and raised crosswalks, working to complete physical barriers along 20 miles of established bike lanes, committing $75 million to expand the ‘Fair Fares’ discounted MTA rides program and make it permanent, breaking ground on over 100 paused park projects across the five boroughs, and completing a $50 million sewage and water main overhaul in Southeast Queens to protect homes and streets from chronic flooding.
For too long, we allowed our critical infrastructure to fall into disrepair, creating crisis after crisis.
We must be planning ahead and investing in a city that works for all New Yorkers.
That is why this budget includes more than $900 million to create safer, greener, and cleaner streets across the city and to make sure they are more accessible to our seniors and those living with disabilities.
We will build more bus lanes to facilitate faster commuting — complete with countdown clocks so you know when the next one is coming.
We will also be piloting new approaches to last-mile delivery to help reduce the number of trucks and vans holding up traffic and blocking our sidewalks.
We will also continue to make historic investments in our city’s parks and open spaces by adding nearly half a billion dollars in capital funding for our parks system — a significant down payment towards our ultimate commitment of one percent for parks.
Our parks are the crown jewels of our city, and New Yorkers all across the five boroughs rely on them for rest, recreation, and exercise.
This funding will go to new infrastructure, long-awaited repairs, and increased trash pickup.
We will be able to refurbish our greenways, improve public pools, and extend hours at our recreation centers.
And we will plant 20,000 more trees on city streets — providing shade and beauty and improving air quality.
We are also making other investments to create a more sustainable city, including ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse emissions and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, improving access to renewable energy, procuring more plant-based, local food options across city agencies, and moving towards zero waste with expanded access to composting.
As a coastal city in the era of climate change, we must also protect our vast and complex infrastructure from extreme weather and other climate shocks.
We’re also investing in public health on every level — from preparing for future pandemics to expanding lifestyle medicine programs in all five boroughs.
We must help address the factors that have led to the epidemic of chronic diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, and take them as seriously as we take other health emergencies.
And finally, we must commit to creating the affordable housing that New Yorkers have needed for so long.
Housing cannot be a privilege for those with supportive families or generational wealth. It is the key to living a good life in the greatest city in the world.
This must include housing for families, older New Yorkers, people living with disabilities, and those who have experienced homelessness.
It must be for young people just starting out as well as people who are starting over.
That is why we are committing $5 billion in additional funding for housing over the next decade.
Five billion dollars.
This is the biggest housing investment in generations, and it will impact many generations to come.
This money will help make critical repairs at NYCHA, subsidize those who need help staying in their existing homes, and build more deeply affordable housing for the entire city.
In the coming weeks, we will be releasing a detailed blueprint for housing and homelessness, based on the input of our city’s top experts and everyday New Yorkers.
And my administration is going to do everything we can to take this dream of equality and turn it into reality.
That is ‘Getting Stuff Done’ on an historic level.
And these efforts are just the beginning.
We will continue to transform our city through good government and responsive leadership.
And it all comes down to this: safety, jobs, schools, and housing.
It sounds simple, radically practical.
But it is the work of many hands, many minds, many years.
And there’s no better place to begin than right here.
The American Dream has always started in New York City, and this moment is no exception.
The most talented, adventurous souls anywhere on earth come here.
Over 400 years, we have turned this small port town into the global center of commerce, art, and diversity.
From skyscrapers to subways, our wildest dreams have become the world’s everyday reality.
And now, we’re about to start a new chapter in the New York story.
This is the part where we find the compassion to house, help, and educate everyone.
The wisdom to put aside the old arguments and embrace our newfound unity.
And the courage to work together in solidarity to build a city of hope, equity, and justice.
A city that will light the way and lead the nation.
Because there are two types of people in this world: New Yorkers and those who wish they lived here.
I’m glad I’m a New Yorker.
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