Want to provide your feedback on the Walk Safe San José draft plan? Take our survey! Your comments will help build the final plan. (Posted on August, 5, 2024)

Walk Safe San José is a pedestrian safety plan to encourage more walking, biking, and taking public transit. This plan focuses on council districts 3, 5, 6, and 7. These districts have seen the most traffic fatalities and severe injuries, according to the City’s Vision Zero Action Plan. The problem is especially severe for people walking or using mobility aids.

Project ACTION PLAN

Project Goals 

• Improve priority areas by providing safe routes of travel for vulnerable road users. This includes people who walk, children, older adults, low-income people, people with disabilities, and unhoused people.
• Develop 30% quick-build design plans with buy-in from the contributing communities. These plans can allow the City to make fast improvements to high-risk streets.
• Use research and proven examples of successful traffic safety projects in other U.S. cities to improve San José streets.

Guiding Principles and Key Outcomes

The process of conducting this planning work is guided by the following principles:

• Informed by community engagement. Walk Safe San José is informed by key partners and stakeholders. We focus on working with community members who have been historically excluded by planning processes. We met with community partners, so they can offer feedback and recommendations. These comments are incorporated in draft and final plans. 
• Rigorous systemic data analytics. Walk Safe San José recommendations are grounded in quantitative and qualitative data. Our work is supported by maps that document crucial data points in all our focus areas.
• Focus on community education. Our consultant team makes all outreach and information available to all residents. This is so community members, regardless of income, background, or abilities, can participate in this plan. 
• Understand and build on the history of previous work in our focus areas. Our work is guided by previous plans that have already identified known issues. Some of these issues can include infrastructure gaps and lack of transportation.

Recommendations will focus on how best to achieve these key outcomes:

• Reduce and eventually eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries. The number of traffic deaths in San José grew 37% from 2009 to 2018. Meanwhile, the City’s population grew by less than 10%. Walking made up a small share of trips but accounted for almost half (49%) of traffic fatalities in 2022. Better pedestrian infrastructure and community education can help prevent vehicle-pedestrian collisions and save lives. 
  
  
• Focus on corridor-based safety projects using “quick-build” materials. Walk Safe San José can use quick and effective treatments to improve safety on high-risk streets.  Quick-build materials include paint, cones, flexible barriers, and signage. These are durable, cost- and time-effective materials that will be considered for priority locations.
  
  
• Improve the quality of public life and sustainability. Improvements to pedestrian infrastructure can boost the city’s social, public health, and economic outlook. Safe places to walk can encourage social interactions, promote physical activity, and boost the local economy. As a result, this can encourage more people to depend on cars less and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  
  
• Increase multimodal access, efficiency, safety, and connectivity for all travelers. Walk Safe San José improvements will connect pedestrians to other ways of getting around, like transit and shared mobility. And a network of interconnected streets with shorter blocks can provide multiple advantages. They can support access to destinations for pedestrians, calm traffic, and reduce vehicle speeds.
  
  
• Preserve and enhance unique cultural assets. This can help to create a sense of place for pedestrians.

Timeline

The project has three phases:

• Phase one: Community engagement is the main point of focus in the first phase of this plan. We host events like walk-and-talks and workshops to gather community feedback. This feedback helps us refine our plan.
  
  
• Phase two: The focus of the second phase is to gather information from the public about the safety improvements they would like to see. The public is also encouraged to list where they want these safety improvements the most. During this second phase, we received 311 online survey responses from across San José.
  
  
• Phase three: During the final phase, we draft designs of potential quick-build projects across four council districts (3, 5, 6, and 7). These quick-build projects involve low-cost and semi-permanent materials. These projects can be installed quicker than permanent improvements, like traffic signals. And DOT can adjust and/or make the treatments more permanent. As such, these projects prioritize safety for everyone who walks or rolls! To gather feedback from the community, we held four demonstration pop-ups. Members of the public tested out design concepts with us.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments about the plan, please email project manager Thao Nguyen at thao.nguyen@sanjoseca.gov.

Equity Steering Committee (ESC) Highlight

The Equity Steering Committee is focused on centering equity and social justice in making San José a safer place to walk and roll.

The ESC is led by Cal Walks, DOT, and Nelson & Nygaard. The committee works with community-based organizations, partners, stakeholders, and community leaders to help develop the Walk Safe San José plan. We have eight members on the committee. The ESC and the organizations they represent work closely with DOT to share information about the project with the populations they serve.

Our committee members participated in four ESC meetings. They gave us feedback and supported project development, public events, and also conducted their own activities.

PAST POP-UP DEMONSTRATIONS

Pop-up demonstrations allow DOT to test quick-build projects that protect our more vulnerable populations. These populations include our unhoused, youth, older adults, and transit users.

Pop-up demonstrations were evaluated by DOT staff. We used our evaluations and the public’s feedback to understand how potential street designs could impact the rest of the street. These pop-ups were trials. No projects have started at these locations yet.

The pop-up demonstration locations and times were as follows:

• February 8, 2024
  • 7 to 11 a.m. at Old Oakland Road and Fox Lane
• February 9, 2024
  • 7 a.m. to 7p.m. at Yerba Buena Road and McLaughlin Avenue
• February 10, 2024
  • 8 to 10 a.m. at Minnesota Avenue and Three Creeks Trail
• February 10, 2024
  • 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Coleman Avenue and W Taylor Street

Funding

This plan is funded by Caltrans' Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant.

Resources

• VTA connection study
• Signal infrastructure study
• Navigating urban space study

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