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 year. we shouldn't be losing anybody

just walk ing in san francisco. the strategy the mayor has today to bringing people together and safety and to be smart and the goals that the mayor has for us in terms of i mproving safety and walking around the city. we are using our technology to target the resources we have in determining how to invest in our roadways and deploy resources and target our outreach as the chief and mayor eluded to are important to our equation. with those resources

i think we can and will achieve the goals we set out to make san francisco the best walking city in the country. i want to thank all the folks behind me and all the folks who worked to get this strategy into place and all the people in the community to make this strategy a reality and realize the goals we set for ourselves. thank you so much and happy walk to workday. >> thank you, so much, ed. and thank you so much to mayor lee, and your leadership. already we have seen 7 people hit and killed by cars. of course that's too many. we are eager to see this plan implemented. the first streets are transformed because every time you first pave a street it's a time to calm traffic and it's time for san francisco to

prioritize one of the characteristics to people all over the world that we are a walkable city. we need to make investment to keep our people safe and support our local neighborhood and businesses with foot traffic. thank you for all who attended this. first step i will invite supervisor mark ferrel from district 2. >> thank you so much. i just want to say really quickly thank you to all of those from district 2 who are gathering this morning. i see you here this morning. to my own and very proud mta commissioner, lean a bridges. thank you. we had a great time walking this morning. if we can order this

weather everyday we can walk more often. thank you very much for joining us today to making san francisco the best city in the country. thank you everyone. >> thank you, supervisor ferrel. next we have supervisor david chiu from district 3. >> the sun is shining on walker's today and thank you for presenting the diversity. everyday someone walks or takes a bike to munis but everyone walks. i want to thank the mayor for the goals that we have for the pedestrian program. i think we have a generation today of board of supervisors who are making sure that we are moving forward a pro pedestrian agenda. we are walking in the footsteps of other supervisors including max

well who also knew how to walk the walk. will is i want to say is the mayor talked about a goal about reducing pedestrian fatalities, i think we should go further. there is a zero tolerance when it comes to pedestrian fatalities. some day in our life times, we will have years where no one gets killed on our streets. thank you very much for being here. >> i support that goal. and supervisor katie tang from district 4. >> good morning, everybody. as i was talking to our group that walked in this morning as we enter into the work world we tend to forget to do walking as part of our daily activities. if you are going away from a meeting, try to use the stairs instead of the elevators. we

need to incorporate that into our daily life styles. i know when i used to do so much more walking and now it's very difficult to do that. thank you for being. [ applause ] >> thank you, supervisor. i want to acknowledge we've had a lot of supervisors who also walked in today. malia cohen and his staff walked in 5 miles this morning. i think they might win the longest commute prize but that's still to be determined and supervisors mar, campos and scott wiener walked in this morning as well. thanks everybody for walking in and of course this wouldn't be possible without our sponsors so i wanted to thank especially presenting sponsors paramount group and invite the president

mike sanchez. >> good morning. glad to be here today with you. we are very proud to be the prime sponsor or the first ever walk to workday. we are glad it's happening in san francisco. paramount group is an environmentally and socially forward real estate company. we own one market plaza downtown. we also own 75 howard which is an 8-story parking garage. we hope we will be able to demolish the 8 story parking garage and build walkable transit friendly housing. restaurants and open space along the embarcadero that all of san francisco can enjoy

everyday. paramount group participation reflects our focus on being a healthy or part of a healthy walkable and safe city. that's why in our existing buildings like one market we've made extra rooms for bikes, we've created showers and changing rooms for those who want to bike to work and walk to work. so this is part of our mantra. we hope that you will agree that 75 howard should be housing that is walkable to work and walkable to all that san francisco has to offer. if you agree, we hope you go to our project on howard.com. >> i would like to acknowledge

district 6 and london breed who cake -- came from hayes valley. please come and celebrate with us at happy hour. thanks so much. enjoy your walks today. [ applause ] [ applause ] [ applause ] [ applause ]

>> good morning, everyone, it is may one, 2013, and i want to thank everybody for taking your time to come celebrate with us. this is the day that we will be launching a month long celebration, for asian pacific heritage month. it is a very special time of the year for some of us because it is really a time that we come together and spend a little bit more time with each other. i was thinking about this when i was driving down to city hall today and i say, mmm, a lot of us see each other during the times of the year. but, just the law of this country, the month of may was designated every year for the special celebration and heritage of asian pacific americans and i am glad that we in san francisco and it is a time for us to come together and this celebration every year would not have happened if a committee of volunteers did not come together to plan this. i must say, that you know, the

volunteers committee met last november and every year we think about what do we do, how do we bring our people together because as you know they are over 30 ethic groups in the family, so we are a very, very diverse group and when you think about heritage month, we don't think of koreas or filipino or all of the rest. we think about the family. that is special about who we are and we are in a city that welcomes that and in a city with the mayor that is some of our own and we cannot be more proud their mayor lee is here today to have us kick off a whole month of celebration, mayor lee? >> thank you, claudene, thank you for your annual work.

you and the committee, i know that you get together with everybody months in advance to pull this off and there is an exciting number of events that we have, but let me say, first of all, thank you, to assess recorder carmen for joining us today and our newest supervisor tang for joining us today they are going to be great partners in helping me run this city. also, again, to the committee that there is going to be so many events happening this month, the month of may, for all of you is a very, very busy month. many, many different events. i often go back to that nice musical that i watched many years when i was young camelot and they always referred to the lusty month of may there is so much going on, it is spring and a lot of things and the

warriors are winning and the giants are winning and so much going on. again, this whole month we get to celebrate all of the things that we do in the city that celebrate diversity in general and focus on our broad, deepening asian community and as she said, even though i am chinese, i love the fact that i can celebrate with the vietnamese and the korean and learn all of the subgroups that are forming that have come here, not only in san francisco, the whole bay area. and we come together, i know, we have a very special event coming up on monday, at the jazz center. which is going to be i think for everybody a first to visit that. and to celebrate and i want to thank, the people who have been judging for our themes because it is not just cultural

celebrations, they are actually focused this year on the asia contribution to the performing arts. and hopefully that gets me closer to hollywood. because we have a lot of stars in our communities and i know that in this era where we have grown up, certainly my parents did not necessarily put a great focus on the arts. but i know that as families starts establishments and certainly for me and anita, we wanted to make sure that our kids had an appreciate of the arts. we actually forced them to do piano lessons. but then as we grew up, they really appreciated it. because they play and they enjoy it. that is why, my daughters got into the youth for asian art at loyal high school yfat and they

gave them exposure and i know that katie knows that because she was introduced to it at the same time where the drama and performance complicated their education. and so now arts has become part of the education and because the appreciation of that means that you are even more well rounded in the things that we do. and for many of you who have worked with me in the last couple of years, you know that arts is leading the effort to revitalize market street. the tenderloin, south of market. it is the rising of that and i know that nobody in this room knows better than dr. lisa stevens of the academy of art university, because we look at her business, and it is going because people appreciate the roll of arts in all of our lives. it enriches us. but it is also a great profession to become a part of. it is a great point of education the arts is now

become a critical partner with technology. and you can't sell products without designing them for people who want to use them. you can't enliven people's enthusiasm without roles in arts. and so, it is part of our business as well. and so, i think that this great contribution of the arts is going to be wonderful and i want to thank dr. stevens and i want to thank richards and wo ng from bay cat from being the three wonderful judges that had the very difficult tasks of selecting these wonderful contributers to our arts programs in the bay area. that will be announced on monday, i believe. so, they don't get to put the pressure on the mayor any more to make those decisions. because we always lose, you know, support when we don't have one winner, so we are

depending on them. any way, again, that is just one aspect. come, may 18th. we have, of course, the annual 9th street fair asian heritage street fair and that will be here at civic center and again a wonderful celebration of bringing together multicultural asian participation. and those are, that is a lovely, lovely street there because it is one of the largest ones that just keeps building every year and i know that ted fang and the wonderful contributions of his committee is going to be helpful for that. there will be many other events during this month, that again, celebrate asian heritage, cultural arts, performing arts. we have a lot that we are contributing to the whole art scene and all of the united states and i know that this is going on not only in our city. but across the country. and i want to take a moment to also give my personal thanks to

the corporate sponsors because we could not, we are doing this without government funds, and it becomes invaluable to us. these public, private partnership and i want to give a mean thanks to the target stores to their lead contribution for the third year. and of course, we will work with them on the fourth year because this keeps going and so thank you, target. but there are so many others, of course, art university, and at&t. pg&e. mcdonalds. thank you, cici for being here and of course wells fargo bank are all great contributers to this growing celebration. i also wanted to say that it is not just a celebration, we have a lot of work to do in this country. that is why part of my work, in visiting washington, d.c. last week was to work with mayor and represent the mayers of this country to push our country to

make sure this month if not the next month, we get comprehensive immigration reform done, because that is part of why immigrants came to this country. we have established ourselves. immigrants from all of the different backgrounds. we have made san francisco one of the most special homes for immigrants. but we need to see our country modernized its immigration laws. we need to see that comprehensive immigration reform done and we need to celebrate more family unification and we need to get the dreamers here so they don't live in the shadows but live full lives. they earn the living that they have because we know, that if people live in shadows they are going to have to be forced to accept the worse conditions for their jobs for their families. but we also know that as soon as someone has a pathway to citizenship their check powers and their ability to earn and contribute to the communities

grows exponentially and this is part of the work that we need to do as mayers and senator and let's get this done in our life times. if does not happen this year it will not happen in your lifetime. we got to get it done, that is why we were there in washington, d.c. advocating with our partners to do that. that should be part of the way that we celebrate is we work harder to earn the passport for everybody else. i did not become mayor just to celebrate. i also became mayor to keep the doors of opportunity open for future generations. and it means a lot for the whole asian community to be a part of this as well. because, you know what opportunities we seize upon it and then we work it and we open the doors for everybody else. and that is how a city becomes successful. because we keep those opportunities opened. so it means, much more than

just cultural celebrations. you put in the light of history, and you work it with all of the elected officials and the appointed officials whether they are commissioners and department heads. and we have even more to work in to celebrate and to bring a lot more people involved in it. so, claudine and the committee and all of you who are here to celebrate. let's begin this month and celebrate the fashion and keep the work going and keep the opportunities going and make the month of may to be the greatest month and by the way, i get to celebrate my birthday at the same time. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, mayor lee. so today's press conference is about thanking our sponsors and the exciting announcement of the heritage this year. and before i bring up the elected official to address you, i just wanted to take a moment to thank again all

serving on the community to put this together especially the team co-chairs. thank you so much for your leadership. and the members of the committee, and we are very small group but you know i think that we come together and we make things happen and that is the most important. so without further adieu, i would like to invite supervisor katie tang. and followed by carmen chiu. >> i just wanted to take this opportunity to thank claudine and all of the hard working volunteers to put the celebrations together. i know how hard you work, as mayor lee was talking about his experience and his daughter taking piano lessons especially with the theme this year in

honoring at chiefments in the performing arts i was part of the band. and i played the nraout in middle school and high school and at that time it was very cool. and we actually got to the point where we got to perform at carnege hall. and it was a great experience and i don't know what my life would have been without having that in my background. as we are celebrating the performing arts, i want to encourage everyone to incorporate that into their lives and hope that many more generations of people will consider that a part of their childhood growing up as well. and again, i want to thank everybody and we are so lucky to be here in san francisco where we embrace the diversity and accept all sorts of people from all different cultures. so, hopefully, this month will be a great time as many of us are so busy in our lives and i think that having a month where we dedicated to celebrating things such as women history month or asian pacific historiage month or small business month, it takes a moment to stop and think about the achievements and celebrate our different culture sos so

thank you everybody. >> carmen chiu. >> good afternoon, everybody, san francisco's new assess er. and today i am honored to be with you and i want to thank all of the corporate sponsor and the many volunteers who have helped, year in and year out to put this event together and i want to appreciate you. but i also want to say that i know that this year's theme is about arts, i was not a young person who really did much in terms of arts. i did not play any instruments, probably played the recorder when i was in the second grade and it has not expanded beyond that very much but i think that we can all appreciate what art does and the people who can actually carry that forward and what that really brings and how it enriches all of our lives. i think that in all of our lives we see how the art plays into it. when i negotiate with my husband is who is cooking i think th