The following is the text of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg�s weekly radio address as prepared for delivery on 1010 WINS News Radio for Sunday, January 6, 2013.

�Good Morning. This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

�Achieving any goal � whether it�s a personal New Year�s resolution or a professional objective � requires a sustained commitment. And as we look ahead to the new year, I�m glad to report that in 2012, our hard work paid off in very important ways. For instance: Life expectancy has reached an all-time high; New York City has had fewer murders and fewer shootings than at any time in recorded history; the City�s incarceration rate has plummeted.

�And last week, we got good news in two more areas � fire safety and our growing tourism industry.

�On Wednesday, I joined Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano to recognize a number of FDNY officers who had earned promotions. And our fire safety numbers show just how important their hard work has been to our city.

�Last year, New York recorded the lowest number of fire-related deaths � 58 � since record-keeping began in 1916. In fact, thanks to the service and sacrifice of New York�s Bravest, 2012 closed out the safest decade ever for fire-related incidents in our city. Since 2002, we�ve averaged 85 civilian fire deaths per year. It�s a 41 percent improvement over the previous 10 years, when the city averaged 144 fire deaths per year. An important part of our achievement is that we�re responding to fires and other life threatening emergencies faster than ever. Firefighters now arrive an average of 20 seconds faster than they did a decade ago. And ambulance response times now average six minutes, thirty seconds � a one second improvement over the record we set in 2011.

�Improving public safety goes hand in hand with attracting more visitors to our city. As families think of where to travel, safety is often a top concern. That�s why New York�s position as the nation�s safest big city is a central reason why we�re also America�s number one city for tourism.

�Thanks to a lot of hard work from our tourism and marketing agency, NYC & Company, New York welcomed a record 52 million visitors last year. Together, those visitors spent $36.9 billion � an all-time high. And perhaps best of all, the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes hotels and other businesses that depend on tourism, today supports an all-time high of roughly 356,000 jobs in our city. Those jobs pay, on average, $52,000 a year � roughly $7,000 more a year than the average job.

�From public safety to tourism to jobs, 2012 has given our city the start we need to make 2013 another year for the record books.

�This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Happy New Year and thanks for listening.�

(YWN Desk – NYC)