also been very supportive. our district supervisor, jane kim. [ applause ] >> the mayor said it but i think we have a ribbon cutting almost twice a day now in district 6. this is an exciting one. the first constructed fire station in san francisco since 1950. it's pretty amazing considering when the fact that the mayor brought up is the busiest station in san francisco. in my time at the distribution, unfortunately i got to know a lot about the fire department. we have had 13 working fires, several which were very significant and displaced or injured our residents. i learned how hard the fire department works, how important their speedy response is in terms of saving lives and

of course our possessions but also how they build relationships with their constituents at a time of intense loss, anxiety and fear and they do it with a great deal of compassion and dignity. i think that's the most important aspect of the work they do on behalf of our city. it's truly incredible to have a department to be able to get that type of feedback from our constituents. it's great to welcome our fire department to district 6. yes, it's a block away from my house. i forgot to leave the key to my apartment with my neighbor so i had to run and do that before i came here. they have been working to help facilitate with the fire department and the modern museum of art. it wasn't long ago when our city first started

to develop plans to develop yerba buena -- that's going to be an exciting development. this was a great outcome of that. six years ago we opened a large scale park along with the first constructed public school. as we connect this corridor, folsom street is going to be a great street, 500

units and they will be good neighbors to the fire department here. so i look forward to the critical role in -- that the fire department is going to display which includes the tenderloin and 6 district area. in 2000 alone fire fighters left that station 924 times. we are really fortunate to have a chief that is well regarded both for her ability to lead a well respected institution and for her integrity and honesty. oven -- often when we have difficult decisions to make, we can trust her. i want to thank the staff

and fire department. because they save lives and compassion they are able to show our residents goes a long way. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you supervisor kim. for those of you that don't know the san francisco fire department has a 5 member fire commission. before calling the next speaker i want to announce the former london breed. you had a lot to do with us getting here and now commissioner of the retirement system, victor make residueers -- he spent countless hours with us. without your counseling and guidance, we wouldn't be here today. fire commissioner andre

evans. thank you very much. it's wonderful to see such say big crowd here today to celebrate the opening of this new station as people have said before has been way too long to be honest since there has been a new fire station in the city. on behalf of the fire commission, i want to say we are incredibly proud to be here and incredibly excited and think it's appropriate that the men and women who give so much to the city that they are given state of the art facility. i'm so glad that this wonderful fire station is opening. i don't think it's everyday that -- it's not everyday that a private institution comes forward and says let's do something great for the city.

i want to thank all the members who put in so much time and effort into making this fire station what it is. i think the results speak fore itself. it's first class and i think it's going to serve the community for a long time to come. so thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioner evans. before we call up our next speaker, i want to acknowledge our members of station 1. i appreciate your flexibility, i hope you are happy with your new firehouse. it's obviously much brighter and modern and space seismically facility. in the firehouse where you work, it's more than a workplace but a second home. i am committed in this neighborhood to be good neighbors, we are joined by some neighbors and we have received a little constructive

criticism that why are you having the ribbon cutting in the middle of the week when we are working. if you pass along to your neighbors that couldn't be here, we will have an open house later in the evening you can be here. that's why we move senior captain in station one. i would like to invite captain to come up and say a few words. >> welcome and thank you for attending. station one is one of the biggest stations in the nation. running over 17,000 calls a year. on behalf of the station one, i would like to thank each one of you for your support in this project. we truly appreciate coming to work in an environment that is sporting our good health and safety. so ultimately we can support yours.

we consider this community our community, our home away from home. i would like to assure you that we remain committed to continuing our primary mission. that is to protect the lives and property of the people we serve. thank you very much. >> and so you can find out a little bit more about this facility. i would now like to call up the principal architect responsible for this facility. bill letty. with stacy architect. >> thank you, chief. you know, a little known fact is that every architect wants to design a firehouse. not just because many of us wanted to be fire fighters at some point in our lives, it's because these are really iconic hybrid buildings

that we feel -- embody a building that express dignity and security for our community. these are important facilities for our community. when we are working on this project in the office we often joke that firehouse no. 1 is like a block on steroids with really big machines in the garage. it's been a great experience for myself an my team to work on this project. of course, the board and staff of s f museum -- and bob, joy,

and dave. the san francisco department of public works has been a true collaborator on this project and i would like to thank charles and gabriela. our team, of course webcor builders who made sure things happened and lineey oaks and lou, thanks, guys. and last but not least everyone at the san francisco fire department. we've government -- gone through a whole variety and great to assist a deputy chief who was an awesome partner during the early phase of this project and talking to the neighbors and trying to make

sure the way it was paved for this project to really happen and of course deputy chief, kim lombardy to make sure we had all the details. i would like to point out to you that haven't noticed yet, there is a plaque to the right of the building that honors the fire fighters that have sacrificed their lives to the city for years. i would like to say with sincere hope today that they will serve for at least another hundred years. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> thank you. mr. letty. next i would like to introduce from webcor builders it's project director who spent a lot of time working with us on this

project and that is mr. spencer reiner. thank you, chief. i would first like to congratulate and welcome the fire department to their new station. it's a wonderful neighborhood, hopefully we don't have to build another station for another 40 years. this was a great project for all of us to be involved with. it was definitely a team effort. bill letty, stacy, captain, kim lombardy and of course the other individuals at the fire department, charles at dpw, with that i would like to congratulate you with your new home and the best of luck. thank you. [ applause ] >> so we are pretty close, we are 3 minutes away from noon. without too much further delay, i do want to acknowledge a few

more people, our city administrator, naomi kelly. [ applause ] as i would like to call it my partner in public safety, sir, thank you for being here. city engineer is with us. from the department of emergency management along with other people from the department of emergency management and i'm introducing all of these people because it wasn't just the fire department alone. it took a lot of work from the department of technology to the department of city planning, i saw brian strong here early and ken rich from the mayor's office. a whole host of people, and we have john green who is our department captain, who earlier this morning gave a very special blessing upstairs in the dining facility to all the members at station 1 and for

blessing this building and all the work done here. few other folks that i would like to acknowledge, local 798, the men and women presented by tom o'connor behind me, thank you, tom. as well as some of his members of the executive board here, thanks very much to local 798. there is two retired deputies here. i have seen this happen. i'm grateful they came back because it's this early phase, he got us where we are at today. thank you very much. [ applause ] and also retired deputy chief of operation patrick guard who was a member of station one 1 gaevend us -- gave us a lot of input. most of my command

staff is behind me. just like when you go out and run a call you count on each other as a team. i couldn't stand here doing what i do without the team behind me. i would like to acknowledge all the members from the team behind med -- me, the deputy chiefs. everyone. there is one person i would like to call out who crossed the finish line, assistant deputy chief, ken lombardy. [ cheering and applauding ] [ cheering and applauding ] >> we get the job done. thank you to everyone who came out. we have a few retired folks that are here. welcome, consider visiting us again. thank you for coming today and final thanks to the museum of modern art for your generosity

and vision of getting us where we are today. now we'll do the ribbon cutting. there is one person i want to call up and introduce and appreciate her willing to do so. her name is sarah, her longest standing member of station 1. she's been in the department since 1987 and came to station 1 and been here since 1994. it's been a great pleasure to have her assist us with the ribbon cutting. take a look at the station and we will perform great work for you out of this station. thanks for your attention. 3, 2, 1. [ cheering and applauding ] [ cheering and applauding ]

>> >> >> >> all right. how is everybody doing? who wants -- walked to work today? happy walk to workday, everybody. i'm excited to be here for san francisco to lead the nation for the very first official walk to workday in the us right

here in san francisco. [ applause ] >> i'm elizabeth. i want to welcome everybody who walked near and far. i want all of you to post online and tweet about it because that's how you win prizes. i want to introduce the mayor who has an exciting announcement to make this city safer and better for walking not just today but everyday. mayor ed lee. >> thank you four your walk and advocacy and leadership as well. we do a lot of things in the city for the first time and i'm really glad to see this walk to work program get kick started in our city. we are one of the most walkable cities in

the world. i just completed a walk down market street to update myself on what all the things that are going on on market street and tenderloin and all the investments going on and you don't see that on the ground unless you are walking the beautiful streets. i want to thank paramount group for being a sponsor on the first effort to make sure that we set the standard for many states across the country. you can learn a lot of what's going on. i'm glad to see all the members of the board of supervisors here. if i can remember who is here today that made it all the way here so far. board president chiu,

president breed, cohen, chang. have i missed anybody? i didn't want to forget because i believe her birthday is coming up. former supervisor max well. thank you very much. i also want to thank the number of departments that are working together with walk sf and not only public works but sfmta which is taking a lead on pedestrian strategies and making sure our streets are safer with our police department and with our health department and so many others . they are coming together to form a strategy that not only encourages people to walk but we need to do more to ensure our streets and sidewalks are safe for our school kids, parents, seniors, everybody who we encourage to walk more and keep healthy and also need to work more on the safety of our

streets. that's the announcement i wanted to make today in addition to walk to workday and that we now have presented online and paper form a pedestrian strategy program led by the sfmta and transit authority along with their partnership with public health, public works and with our police department. we have in the past back in 2010, set a goal that in 10 years by 2021 we should cut the number of pedestrian fatalities by 50 percent. we are going to measure our way there in the next eight years. we have identified through numerous meetings a strategy that is multipronged that will not only look at the physical things that we have to do, things like

narrowing the streets and widening sidewalks and making sure we fund these projects that are identified both in terms of their capital but also pilot programs, things that we don't yet know will have how much of a degree of safety we can say, but we have to do enough experimenting in these areas along with proven programs to increase safety and i know the board of supervisors and each of them are advocating very strongly and we will have that reflection on our budget discussions along the way. we have to have not only a strategy that focuses on the physical improvements, we also have to have a strategy with our police department and our chief making sure we enforce these efforts that we are

making because people won't listen and their behavior won't change unless we enforce the laws on there. it isn't enough to declare all 180 school cites to have the 15 miles per hour zone when everybody is violating it. we can't reduce the miles per hour unless we enforce it. we have to enforce drunken driver laws. these things really pain us to see accident by accident to know what the reason was and we can't just be satisfied by calling it an accident. we can do things to prevent accidents. we can do things to prevent drunken drivers. we can do things to make sure that pedestrians and drivers, whatever vehicle, public or private vehicles do better to increase safety. we are going to fix 5 miles of streets per year to make our city's safer.

that's what this strategy has. we are going to retime 160 intersection to give pedestrians more time and 5 schools. we are going to reopen 20 closed crosswalks by 2021 and upgrade curb ramps in the next ten years. in addition to that, in addition to working with our police department and police chief to make sure the high risk behaviors like red lights and failure to yield to pedestrians get this enforcement. we have to do more about that. >> you can see strategy plan on sf mayor.org website. so review

for yourself and i annoy -- know there are volunteers to ensure that plan not only is a plan, but we carry it out. in an about a week we are going to have a website where all the things we promise to do are going to be interactive on the website and you are going to hold us accountable to do that. without accountability, i want to make sure we do not have an empty plan. we are going to fun this thing. we have identified a third of the funding all right. we are going to make sure this thing is carried out. along with that, i can't emphasize more that we need increased education to all the people who use our streets. pedestrians as well as as drivers. the phenomenon that we've seen happen in the last two years where people are

taking their technology gadgets and paying more attention to than walking with their kids or taking care of they are seniors cannot happen in this city. enjoy our streets. don't be doing the work where your safety and the safety of others are at risk. we have to have that education going on. we are going to do more of that education, commit ourselves at the school levels, ourselves at the business levels, ourselves at the street levels to make sure we have that conversation and that education to lift up everybody's responsibilities to use our streets properly. then we can say our city a much more walkable city. if it's safe, it's walk able, if we do all the things that make our streets safer and walkable,

then we can enjoy it being the most walkable city. thank you very much. >> thank you so much, mayor. now i would like to introduce chief greg of the san francisco police department. >> [ applause ] >> thank you. i want to wish everybody a good morning with a perfect day to walk to work or actually walk anywhere in san francisco. this is so important and important that this month is driver awareness month because they go hand in hand. the mayor has come up with a great strategy to try to make this a safer city. very sadly 21 people lost their lives last year walking in san francisco and with that, with the board of supervisors there is a plan with the police department and one of the first units with full staff is the traffic company and those are the

officers on motorcycles. the traffic company in those officers assigned to station will be focusing on those intersection and streets across san francisco that have had the most traffic collision and pedestrian injuries and fatalities. they will be focusing on the primary collision factors and everybody can imagine what they are, speeding, failure to yield, not stopping completely at a stop sign, running a red light. drivers need to be aware of this. but pedestrians too, you need to be aware of when you are crossing a street. you are vulnerable when someone is not paying attention. you need to pay attention yourself. make i contact with the driver before you cross. don't put yourself in any dangerous situation. do not walk and text. if you are

going to text or talk on the phone, please do that when you are stationery. it makes the world of difference. it keeps everybody safe and sets a good example for our young people so when they grow up, they learn not to do this. we are committed to this strategy and we think it's going to be successful and we hope to reduce injuries and fatalities. get out and enjoy this beautiful day. thank you. [ applause ] . >> thank you so much, chief. next we have the municipal transportation agency. >> [ applause ] >> thank you, mr. mayor, members of the board. i also want to acknowledge my boerpd of directors and the mta and

our vice-chair. our board member lien a bridges. they are responsible for bringing the example of leadership when it comes to walking. every trip begins and ends on foot. some of our best trips is when we are on foot. that's because walking is free. walking is a zero admission strategy. you don't have to pay for parking. it makes the streets less congested. makes the streets more vital. and this is why san francisco is the great city that it is. walking is safe in san francisco. we shouldn't be losing 20 people a