Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, it is a very beautiful day today. It's a beautiful day out, but it's also a beautiful day for this city. This is a powerful day – day 100 of the coronavirus crisis and it is the day that we start to liberate ourselves from this disease, the day we move forward. Phase one of the restart begins today in New York City and everyone, all New Yorkers, should be proud that you got us to this day. This was a lot of hard work. Everyone who stayed home, everyone who was socially distanced, everyone who put on those face coverings – you got us to this day and it's a day to celebrate hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers coming back to work today, just the beginning of the restart. But it is literally because of every single New Yorker who worked so hard to get us here.
We're here in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Brooklyn Navy Yard is such a powerful place in the history of this city. It is a place of working people. It's a place where people fought for their country in tough times. It's a place where things have been created against the odds. And here again, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was a heroic place in the fight against the coronavirus. Here in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New Yorkers came together to create PPEs, to build things and produce things that weren't made in New York City just a few months ago, but they made them here to save the lives of their fellow New Yorkers. So, this is a great place to be today as we start the next chapter.
I want to thank all my colleagues from the administration who are here, who've all worked so hard through this fight. And every one of us has been together saying we knew we would get to this day, it would take a lot of work, but we are finally here. Now, what comes back today? Construction, manufacturing, wholesale, and nonessential retail now can do curbside and in-store pickup. And we're looking forward to the day in a few weeks where they can go back to their normal operations. Thousands of people are back to work here at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This is a center of manufacturing, including some of the most dynamic companies in New York City, right here. Thousands are coming back to work here today. Remember hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers overall, coming back today to work in the five boroughs.
Now, as we begin the restart, it will not be business as usual. There's work to be done. We have to help businesses to do this right. We're not only going to do inspections and make sure they’re doing the right thing, we're going to help them do the right thing with the free face coverings, with the guides, with the help lines. We're going to help make sure working people are safe because nothing is more important than protecting the health and safety of New Yorkers. So, for every working person coming back to work today, we will watch out for you. And if you see something wrong, we want to make sure it is addressed immediately.
But we also know that for the economy to restart people have to be able to get to those jobs. And this crisis has made that harder in so many ways. So, we have some announcements today that I hope will start to lighten the burden and help move us forward and help move New Yorkers around easier and easier. First of all, I announce today, 20 new miles of busways and bus lanes, 20 new miles. These 20 new miles of busways and bus lanes are going to help over three-quarters of a million New Yorkers to get around more easily – 750,000 New Yorkers will have a faster way to work, more frequent service, less crowding. Look, more service equals less crowding equals more health and safety. That's what we want to achieve. There will be five new busways in New York City. Just like the success we've seen on 14th Street, Manhattan, we're going to add five new busways. They will be launching on an urgent basis. I want to see this happen as quickly as possible because we need the help now given the crisis we're in. We have to make it easier for people to get around. They will launch between June and October.
And then on top of that, four new bus lanes with signage and markings to make it possible for those bus lanes to achieve the goals we've seen. Every time we expedite bus service, more and more people use the buses, more and more people feel it's the right way to go. They don't need their cars. They can take mass transit. And, again, more frequency equals more safety too. These will be launching between June and August, starting this month on East 14th Street in Manhattan and 149th Street in the Bronx. And an important point, the 14th Street Busway, this has been a success by every measure. I said, we're going to do it, we're going to see if it works, we're going to see, do people ride the bus more? Does the bus go faster? Does it have any negative impact on the surrounding streets? And the jury is back. The answer is, it is a clear success. We are making the 14th Street Busway permanent.
Now let's turn to the subways. We have been talking to the MTA now over the last week or two, a lot of forward motion. I thank the MTA for increasing the service and for realizing how important it is to do things like have hand sanitizer in every station. We want to see more and more support for people who are using the subways, want to see the same kind of markings, the same kind of distance markers to help people know where to be. But we're going to help the MTA. We are sending approximately 800 school safety agents who will be in stations, educating New Yorkers, giving out those free face coverings, helping people to feel comfortable when they take that subway ride, that it’s going to be safe. And we're going to keep doing this work with the MTA throughout.
Now, I've got a few other things to talk about, and I think we're trying to find the location of our Commissioner because there was a little situation with his drive over. So, what I'll do is I'll finish everything I got. And when he comes in, he's going to speak, okay. Take a different topic now, one I always say brings up passion in New Yorkers – Alternate Side Parking. We have, obviously, this incredibly important moment where we're restarting. We want to try and make things as easy as possible for people. So, we are suspending Alternate Side Parking for two more weeks. Alternate Side Parking is suspended today through Sunday, June 21st. We'll be reassessing in the meantime whether to bring it back or not.
So, there's a lot to do. There's a lot to do, but we are moving forward in this city. Everyone should be proud of the fact we're moving forward. Let's get this next part, right so we can move forward even more. And this is an appropriate time to talk about our indicators and thresholds. And the news today is very good. So, this is such an important day for the city. I'm happy to say we also have the health data to continue to give us hope that things are moving in the right direction. Let's go over the indicators today. First, the daily number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected COVID-19, that threshold again, 200 patients. We are well under it today at 67 patients. Second, daily number of people in Health + Hospitals ICUs, that threshold is 375 – today, a good number, continues to go down, 326. And number three, percentage of people tested citywide who are positive, tested positive for COVID-19. That threshold is 15 percent. This is the biggest measure in terms of showing us where things really are at in this city, how things are going in this city, the lowest number we have seen – thank you – the lowest number we have seen – three percent. So that is a great, great sign. But, again, we know that the reopening means more and more people will be close to each other. We need to get it right. So, if we would like reopening, we got to stick with it and make sure we do it right so we can get to the next phase.
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