Mayor Bill de Blasio outlined his vision for the five boroughs in his State of the City address at Lehman College in the Bronx. NY1's Courtney Gross filed the following report.

There was no question Mayor Bill de Blasio was in the spotlight on Thursday.

"Our vision is one New York working for our neighborhoods," de Blasio said.

It was his State of the City and the mayor's opportunity to highlight his agenda for 2016.

The speech, though, followed a major political defeat. Nine hours earlier, his deal to curtail the horse carriage industry imploded.

On top of that, while he was speaking at Lehman College, two police officers were shot about six miles away.

"The mayor is going over to Lincoln Hospital to learn more about what happened," said Karen Hinton, the mayor's press secretary.

Both of these events could perhaps overshadow the agenda the mayor was unveiling, which included keeping streets cleaner to major infrastructure projects.

Perhaps the most ambitious was a new rail car that would connect waterfront neighborhoods from Astoria in Queens to Sunset Park in Brooklyn. The rail car could cost $2.5 billion and run along 16 miles of waterfront.

"The BQX has the potential to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers," de Blasio said.

From there, the mayor moved west to Governor's Island, promising to redevelop the isolated area into a innovation cluster which people would visit year round.

There were promises of more garbage pickup, a pledge to put 350 countdown clocks at bus stops, and a $91 million commitment to revitalize downtown Far Rockaway.

The mayor proposed a new retirement fund for private employees. It would be run by an independent board and offered to employees who work at businesses with more than 10 employees.

"We simply do not accept the status quo, where people work all their lives to be left with nothing. That's why we are working for New York City to become the first city in the nation to create a retirement savings account for private-sector employees," de Blasio said.