English transcript

How does it feel to cover your 100,000th pothole?

How does that feel?

What's that feeling like?

It feels pretty incredible, I have to say.

Because for many New Yorkers, this is what their question is when they ask, can city

government actually deliver for me?

Can it deliver on the kinds of things that you feel every single day, the absence of

that pothole being fixed?

The other day, I was just sharing this with a number of workers.

I was biking in lower Manhattan.

And we were at a stoplight.

This was one of those days.

We were at a red light.

A woman behind me was biking, and she just yelled over that, you guys filled two potholes

that were personally important to me.

And people really consider this to be an important part of the work, because it is.

We can't ask New Yorkers to believe in the most ambitious part of our vision if we can't

deliver on the very kinds of things they can see on a day-to-day basis.

And that's what today is about.

What does it feel like to be here side-by-side with the crew members today?

I think it feels incredible, because oftentimes in politics, as the mayor, you get the credit

for the work that frankly so many of these city workers are doing day in, day out.

And we're talking about city workers who have been doing this work in the coldest of conditions,

in the most difficult of conditions, and they've been doing it no matter what it is.

So we're talking about 100,000 potholes having been fixed over the course of 100 days.

We haven't seen these kinds of numbers in over a decade, and it's thanks to their hard

work.

Very good.

This is the work that keeps the city moving.

How does this connect to the budget conversation that you're leading right now?

You know, it comes back to the fact that we're facing a generational fiscal crisis, and we

also don't want that crisis to be one that affects the delivery of city services.

And no matter what path we are going to be on over the next few weeks and months, it's

never going to be one that's going to affect city government's ability to deliver on these

kinds of tasks.

Because we've said again and again, no problem too big, no task too small.

That's the agenda that we have at the heart of our work.

Wow.

If you get this budget right, what does the city start to look like for people that are

doing this work every single day?

I think what we need to do is invest in that which works.

And we're seeing DOT members who are doing incredible work when it comes to fixing potholes.

We also know that this is only the start.

They're about to repave more than a thousand miles of roads across the city, which, you

know, as Pitbull would say, that's the distance from New York City to Miami.

And that's going to be done by the same hardworking men and women of DOT.

We're so excited for them to get started.

Very excited stuff.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, my man.

Let's get a picture.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Yes.

You got it.

Perfect.