City Hall numbers paint a picture of NYC’s successes and failures

Mayor Bill de Blasio takes questions from reporters at One Police Plaza on Sept. 4, 2019. Photo Credit: Charles Eckert

The annual Mayor’s Management Report paints a picture by numbers of how New York City is doing. This year’s 424-page edition, covering dozens of city agencies over the fiscal year ending in June, was released earlier this month.

Some of the numbers blink like warning signs and demand action. Fire deaths are down, but FDNY and ambulance average response times unacceptably climbed. EMS staffing has dropped, and city streets are getting even more crowded, including 120,954 for-hire vehicles.

Homelessness continues to be a battle, with the city posting small reductions for some shelter entry numbers. Yet the average number of single adults in shelters per day climbed again, to 16,094, a sign of continued difficulties.

The numbers show some truisms from previous years. That includes distressingly high levels of violence in the city’s jail system. Also, the report demonstrates that overall citywide crime remains low, despite tragedies like the incident this weekend that led to the on-duty death of a veteran police officer in the Bronx.

Some numbers are missing, though. The MMR used to chart how many cops received long-touted crisis-intervention training for encounters with emotionally disturbed people; that figure disappeared. A city spokesman’s rationale: The report is just a “snapshot of our work, rather than a complete review.” The number is also too low. The NYPD says 15,000 members received the training, some 40 percent of the full force, though the department says it prioritizes officers on patrol.

The numbers do reveal the busy life of the five boroughs. NYC is a place where bike lanes thankfully if slowly sprout (67.5 miles last fiscal year) and speed humps grow (318). It’s a place where inhabitants ask a lot of questions (more than 42 million inquiries to 311).

And yes, the potholes (228,339 of them) even get filled.