california truckers association is right here today with an example of their rigs and their commitment to working with us, the entire private sector and the utility companies and others working with all of our departments with a program that is designed to focus on at least for the next two years a very deliberate effort to look at the way our urban large vehicles are traveling and going in and out and through our city and neighborhoods. this is important to us because we realized that at the very start that while there maybe in terms of numbers of collisions less each of those collisions are very severe whether you're a bicyclist a walker or a senior or a family that if you're in the unlucky situation of having engaged with these large

vehicles your chances of coming out of that is going to be very, very little, and we realize that this is one of the most important things that as we are experiencing a very strong economy in san francisco with all of the developments, not just downtown, but in our neighborhoods, people rehabbing their homes, small businesses rehabbing and from fires and other disasters or the local neighborhoods or in the downtown corridor this is very important. i know supervisor kim this is one of the most important things she said to me as we experience large number of accidents in the last couple of years that we have to make a much more serious effort. all of the advocates said the same thing so it's been my personal objective that we had with mta and dpw lead this effort with police and others and not just to slow down traffic, not just to get

congestion out of the way, not to decongest the boxes but we also have to make sure that all of our utility vehicles in the city whether they're driven by dpw or ecology, whether a trucker delivering their goods or picking up goods, whether it's ups, fedex or whether it's the large truckers that are coming in in to go to safeway and lucky and it is farmers and the produce markets and others that we all go through a very specialized training. today we're announcing a large vehicle urban training program, driving training program that we will ask there is a special certification, special training that is conducted that is embraced by the truckers association and others that we make sure this training program adheres to the special needs of

a very congested urban setting like san francisco. this is what vision zero recommended. we are implementing that today. we are requiring all of our truckers be they city employees or the private sector go through this training and make sure that the drivers themselves understand how to go through a very congested urban setting and pay very close attention to the pedestrians, to bicyclists, not just having the right to go through a light, but taking the extra precaution just as we have been training our pedestrians. doesn't matter what the light color is anymore. you've got to look both ways. you've got to understand that people may not be paying attention. the congestion in the streets and intersections are so high and people are distracted with so many things we've got to pay attention to a higher level of safety in the city and that's

why i endorse this effort. i am proud of all of the departments to begin doing this in a very deliberate way and we launch this program with a strong aggressive education program that should last a long time. truckers and others change all the time, schedules change all the time but the safety has to be at the highest level and as you're trurning corners as you're going down the corridors and out of construction sites or into them or at the store picking up or delivering each of these situations has the ability to hurt someone, and we want to everyone to be that much more aware. police chief just told me we're lucky. the month of january we've had no fatalities pedestrian or otherwise due to traffic that. is a good start. [applause] just a start but it is a good

start, a start that we're proud of and we need to repeat that over and over again and february and march and all of these months will continue this very strong effort but if we do this education right, if the drivers of these large utility vehicles pay attention even more we have that better of a chance to have this record continue throughout the other months. if we have the strong coalition of people working on the next idea and supervisor we commit to the next idea as well to continue this effort we will have a safer arena in district 6 and so much construction and delivery is going. good economic activity is not to be krit suicided but the lack of paying attention to safety has to be criticized and educated and has to change. this is a commitment we made and it wasn't just any kind of a campaign slogan. you know we're

putting serious dollars into this to honor the voters investment of over $500 million in our transportation, $300 million of it will go to redesign our streets and alley ways and all of the other areas where people are going through to begin but we start by saying let's renew the driving ability of large vehicles where people really if you encountered them in a negative way you just don't have a chance so it begins with the drivers themselves saying we're going to committee -- commit with the city. we love this economic time but we're going to honor life in this way and i want to give thanks to the california truckers association with this and they're going to help us with all of the others in the city and lead the way with the proper training and i want to say thank you to ed for your leadership, to muhammad for your leadership as well, and let's not only enjoy these

economic times everybody but let's pay attention to all other things that keep our city successful. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you mr. mayor. this large vehicle driver training program was not just recommended through the vision zero process which involves many stakeholders from both within the government and outside. it actually initiated originated from the mayor himself and towards the end of 2013 when we had a number much serious and fatal incidents in our streets, and again as the mayor said it's a small number of incidents that involve large vehicles but they tend to be disproportionately sever and fatal and after a rash of those and completely in supervisor kim's district that the marge charged us with developing this program and with great cooperation from the california trucking association, from the

teamsters, from people locally here and ups and fedex and others we developed a model program for the country, something we're very proud of. there's maybe not a whole lot of issues within city hall that have across the board unanimous support but vision zero is one of them so not just the leadership from the executive branch but also the board of supervisors who is the transportation authority commission who provide the leadership and funding to advance some of the work we're doing here. we're fortunate to have someone who represents an area that has the highest amount of need with regard to street safety being at the forefront of the leadership on this issue for the transportation authority serving as the chair of the vision zero subcommittee and

also on the board of supervisors representing district 6 that includes tenderloin and south of market areas, two of the highest concentration areas of serious and fatal collisions in the city so join me in welcoming from the board of supervisors supervisor jane kim. [applause] >> thank you. it is really great to be out here to announce this program this morning. as many of you know pedestrian safety has always been one of my top concerns in the district i represent. it was the first hearing i called and i believe it was the second meeting hi with the mayor after we both came into office in 2011 and presented data on collisions with pedestrians and bicyclists and vehicles in the district and i remember being nervous and the first time i was presenting policy concepts we wanted to

work on in the board and without skipping a beat this is my priority. safety is one of the first things we got to make sure that we ensure for the resident it is here in san francisco and it's really been a pleasure to work with the mayor's administration and his department heads to make this a reality for all of our residents throughout the city. 2013 was a really hard year for us. it had been an issue we were working on yet we saw a rise in pedestrian and cyclists fatalities and we noticed many involved large vehicles and i remember we lost three cyclists at that time due to these collisions and all contributing to jobs and economic activity in san francisco and positive things but a result shouldn't be fatalities and severe injuries and the bike coalition approached our office and the mayor's office had also

conceived of a eric mar that we could use. >> >> with our city drivers and as we commit to vision zero in 10 years in san francisco it's important that the city commits first that we model for all of the drivers in san francisco that vision zero is possible so i am excited this is going to be a first step for the city saying we will hit vision zero before 10 years. all of our city and contracted drivers we're not going to be involved with fatalities and collisions here in san francisco and that is really exciting and i should also mention this effort has been community based. we have residents that are actually here in the audience from the tenderloin, from south of market, from chinatown and of course our bike coalition and walk sf who are at every meeting and we are from the department of public health and tim from sfmta and working through the

issues and i want to recognize john knox who lead the large vehicle training studies to make sure we were able to present all of that today but i want to recognize the pedestrians and psyche iftds who gave the feedback on what they wanted in the program. [applause] yes, and their feedback is just as important as the experts because they're the ones on the streets and representing their communities and neighborhoods to make it safe for all. zero fatalities in the month of january is huge news. i can't tell you how many funerals i have been to for residents in the district and there is nothing more heart breaking than meeting the mom, dad, sister or best friend and had their loved 11 day and lost them in a flash in the next and these deaths are 100% preventible and everything that the city can do

to ensure that we are keeping one more son, one more person alive to be loved by their loved ones is a huge achievement for the city so i want to recognize and thank everyone for their efforts to make this a reality. i am so excited about this starting. thank you. [applause] >> thank you supervisor. the idea of cities embracing vision zero or goals like this is something that is picking up currency across the country and the world and as we talk to folks in other cities domestically and internationally and explain to them the leadership that we have from your city hall, from our our mayor, from our local legislative leaders and our board of supervisors people are jealous of the leadership and support that we have because they recognize how important that is to make this meaningful for all of the city agencies for the community and public at

large so i can't emphasize how blessed we are to have this kind of leadership and why we can move the needle. i want to say why we achieved vision zero in january but i share the supervisor's goal and that we be ambitious and beat the last goal and a hallmark of this is the departments working together and i think you can see that we have strong collaboration between the different departments from our great police department our chief of police chief financial officer and newly assigned commander assigned to the mta to help on all safety and security and transportation issues, anne maddox. joanne hayes white and represented by mr. lombardi and the fire chief and we have the mayor's office on disability here. i saw the port director

monique moyer. we have the city family working together and not just the traditional partners like police and public works, but also at least for some people's perspective a non traditional partner who has emerged as a great leader in helping to shape and guide the work we're doing in the city and that is the department of public health looking at the issue of 30 or so people dying in the streets as a public health issue and bringing all of the brain power and the epidemiological lens and looking at this has added tremendous value and put us in the leadership nationally and how we're understanding this and what is creating these and as the supervisor said every one of these is preventible and the department has been a great leader and how we can prevent the serious and fatal injuries

so i am glad to bring up next the director of the department of public health barbara garcia. [applause] >> good morning. the department of public health is so proud to co-chair this task force. one of our biggest and i think most important role of course is education and prevention of pedestrian injuries. this means really educating drivers and pedestrians in terms of slowing down and watching when you're crossing roads or when you're walking through the streets of san francisco. one of the most important contributions we have made to this task force is to ensure that we have the data and surveillance to focus our efforts where the efforts is needed. today we spend $15 million a year on pedestrian injuries in our san francisco general hospital trauma center. we believe we can reduce this and eliminate it by ensuring that we work together and that we really embrace all of the efforts and the policies and

the direction of particularly our mayor, mayor lee, who is giving us the direction and also the total support to ensure that our staff is engaged. i want to acknowledge megan wier who has been our leader in this effort. [applause] she's done a fantastic job. i watched her in the meetings and it's really important to see a public health person right next to the individuals describing streets to ensure for the future to design our streets or safe for our drivers and pedestrians. we are very proud of this effort and look forward to making vision zero effective in less than 10 years thank you so much so. [applause] >> thank you barbara. probably our closest partner in the effort of getting the actual improvements in the ground as the mayor mentioned $300 million of the $500 million of the prop a that the voters authorized last year will advance vision

zero. as part of the program we have committed to fast tracking 24 projects in 24 months. we completed i think 10 of those already and we're doing that in close collaboration with our department of public works from the design to the installation to overseeing the construction. they're our partner in getting these in the ground and i want to join the mayor for hosting us today and please welcome the director of public works, muhammad. >> [applause] >> yeah. let me begin by thanking everyone for coming out today for this very important event. i our city driving a large vehicle around here can be very difficult and safety should always be our number one priority and at public works nobody no matter the size of vehicle is gets in a car without really going through training. it is very, very important especially as we begin to

change what our streets look like making it more pedestrian friendly, making it easier to bike around. our lanes a little bit smaller. it's a little harder for large trucks to drive around the city so it is very very important that we all get together and talk about what the best ways that we can do the business that we have to and still make sure that people can get around easily around our city. the large vehicle working group has been around for about a year. it is been formalized today but a lot of ideas have come out of that working group. in fact we take our sweepers to the sunday streets, put out on display and talk to bicyclists about the things they experience when large trucks are moving, so we take those into the working group. the working group is open to all kinds of ideas. i am very, very confident as we move forward we will change the

way it is and make it much easier for large trucks to be able to do their business, but with that said there is still a lot of work that we have to do and we at public works are proud to embrace the two year plan of vision zero and i am very confident by 2024 that we will reach the goal of zero fatalities so i want to thank everyone. we still have a lot of work to do but it's a partnership of not just our city agencies but involves fedex, eps and all of the teams that bring large vehicles into the city. in closing i would like to thank nancy george who has lead this effort and out there anytime something happens and how and why it happened and the best way to solve that problem and thank you all for coming out and i am again very confident we can

reach zero fatalities by 2024. thank you. [applause] >> thank you muhammad. the two year plan that muhammad referenced is the vision zero action strategy that the mayor is releasing today. this vehicle training program is one piece of it, but the strategy is kind of an action plan for the next two years in the areas of education, engineering, enforcement, evaluation and policy, and it tasks many of the departments here and others in the city family with specific goals and milestones and things that we are seeking and the mayor is directing us to achieve in the next two years, so that we can get closer to that 2024 goal, so we do have -- it's up on our website and i believe we have copies here for the media or we will make copies available if we don't have them but it's this larger strategy that's really going to guide our work

going forward and we will be the yardstick by which the public can measure how well we're doing in this endeavor which leads me to the final speaker and not just the city family but the community at large that needs to embrace vision zero if it's going to become a relate and there is a coalition of community organizations that have come together to advocate for and think through and push the city in achieving this goal and some of our advocacy organizations in the city have been at the tip of the spear of that effort to rally community groups, neighborhood erkz associations and other associations to bring this forward and also to hold our feet to the fire and do as much as we can do in the city and in collaboration with all of the

community partners to achieve this goal. i want to acknowledge the out going andin coming executive directors. leah and noah of the bike coalition and strong partners and their counter part that look out for us to get around the city. every trip starts with doo that and we're all pedestrians and advocating for us as pedestrians and important part of this effort working with the city and the pushing the city is the executive director of walk san francisco nicole snyder. [applause] >> good morning everyone. thank you so much director reiskin for the introduction and mayor lee for your leadership today and supervisor kim and all of the department leaders here today and the san francisco bicycle coalition. this is an amazing moment. a year ago ooze

advocates about 20 community organizations stood at the steps of city hall asking for the city to hear our cries, our cries for six year old sophia lou, and 23 year old amelia who lost thro lives to traffic and preventible and here we are one year later after working long and hard to come together around this issue and it's amazing to see the amount of people here today, the different department leaders. the progress with the private sector working with businesses and our city family to develop a large vehicle training program. these are the sorts of things that we need to embrace and continue as we head into year two and i also want to thank every single group that has become the vision zero coalition. we started off with a not so small group of 20

community organizations and now we're at 40 organizations so i just want to ask everyone in the coalition to raise your hand in pride for what we accomplished in this last year. [applause] and i also want to welcome as director reiskin said our new member and nick and coming from new york's city vision zero campaign and we're lucky to have him and i also want to recognize that we need to build on the progress that we've made. we stand here today having worked incredibly hard to get to this point. countless hours to create what has become the vision zero effort that will change the landscape in san francisco. right now we are changing part of our society that has become so engrained in what we are today, a society that doesn't see -- that sees a

collision as an accident; that sees these things as unavoidable. we're changing that so we can actually -- we can be on our streets, have community on our streets rather than fear on our streets, and as part of that change it's going to take a long time and it's going to take a lot of effort, but i see year two as we head into it as the most critical year because this is the year where we head into implementation and we're not going to do any of that alone. we have to work together and as we work together i think the most important things that we can do are get the projects on the ground, make sure that every street that we touch becomes a safe street, and not just a safer street, because a safer street leaves room for where human error might result in death or injury. vision zero is about creating a system where human error is not allowed. the other things we need to do is prioritize speed. speed is an

invisible crime, or a crime that has been perceived as invisible for far too long but kills 10 times more people than driving under the influence in san francisco so as we work towards enforcement and discuss the options to improve enforcement let's all come together around speed, and all of these top three -- our top three priorities are laid out in the vision zero progress report and we highlight everything that the city has accomplished in the first year and the key priorities for the coming year, so as i wrap up i just want to thank everyone here today and all of the different community member who is have come together. this is a movement that stems from the mayor's office and the board of supervisors and all of the department leaders standing behind me, but it is also a movement grounded in the community. we have kevin who

is a tenant organizationer here with us. we have john who has been fighting traffic safety for a decade. all of the folks with us here today -- fran taylor who leads [inaudible] to make the effort to make cesar chavez a safe street so this is an incredible movement that brings all of the communities together and something that is a personal issue in each community but also is a common thread across our communities and the private sector like large vehicles, so thank you all and here's to a wonderful and successful year two. [applause] >> thank you nicole. so as you can see and the strategy, the action strategy that we're releasing today lays out we have a significant role within the g there's a lot that we're tasking ourselves.

>> >> or the mayor is tasking us to achieve in the next two years. our community leader recess stepping up and exhibiting the leadership that we need to push this message out but ultimately it's every single one of us in san francisco, those that live here, those that work here, anybody that visits here. we all have a role to play. every one of these collisions is preventible so when you're out on the streets of san francisco put away your electronic device, slow down. nicole made reference to the impact speed can have in turning something into a serious or fatal collision. can you enjoy our city more if you're going slow. >> >> so slow down and don't get distracted and we have a better chance of meeting and exceeding and getting to that goal sooner so thank you for coming out today. vision zero.org is where

the strategy and you can track our progress to that strategy. you can track the implementation and initiatives. thank you everybody for coming out today. [applause]