Mayor Mamdani: ‘I’m Tired Of Learning The Names Of New Yorkers Only After They Were Killed In Preventable Crashes’
On Wednesday, the Mamdani administration unveiled its plan to redesign Brooklyn’s deadly Third Avenue. Streetsblog covered the redesign, but Mayor Mamdani spoke so forcefully about the need for action that we are re-publishing the substance of his speech as an op-ed.
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. Em Samolewicz loved to teach visual arts to children and yoga to adults. Clara Kang and Jiayi Zheng were nurses, both at NYU Langone Hospital, just a few blocks away. Waki 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, Kex Un Chen, Brendan Gill, Anthony Watts, Faqui 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’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.”
Seventeen people have been killed on Third 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 Third Avenue have been forced to carry an immense, unending 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 Second and Fourth 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. …
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.
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