San José City Council Approves $6.8M Vision Zero Plan
Caption: San José’s 56 miles of Priority Safety Corridors
On Feb. 18, the San José City Council unanimously approved the Transportation Safety Vision Zero Action Plan including $6.8M funding for the next 18 months. SVBC supports this plan and we are grateful to see San José prioritizing implementing these important safety improvement projects quickly. Though we encouraged the council to allocate more funding to implement all the infrastructure safety improvements more quickly, they approved the staff recommendation for funding, which is still a notable investment toward Vision Zero. Thank you to City Council and staff for making this initial, large investment. The new Vision Zero Action Plan follows up on the previous plan and lays out San José’s top six Vision Zero priorities for the next 4 to 6 years.
The meeting was quite solemn. A few family members of the people who were killed on San José streets last year also spoke in favor of the plan. The council allocated time and had two of the council members read the names of the deceased aloud read before the vote.
The initial $6.8M funding will mostly be spent on ‘quick-build’ projects, like the Better Bikeways network in downtown, using inexpensive materials, primarily plastic bollards and paint, to create temporary and/or pilot infrastructure improvements to make walking and biking safe across San José. This money is sorely needed, as the city estimates that quick-build projects on all 56 miles of Priority Safety Corridors, the most dangerous roads in San José, will cost approximately $25 million and take 4 to 6 years to complete. After this initial investment in the next 18 months, more funding will be needed. We hope this new plan will reduce the increasing number of deaths on San José streets. In 2019, there were sixty people who died on the road including seven people using a bicycle and thirty-six people walking. It was a record year and the trend has been one of increasing deaths for the last five years.
We encourage you to email your thanks to the city council for this new plan and dedicated $6.8 million in funding. Suggested talking points:
Your name, neighborhood or employment in San José, and length of time you’ve lived or worked here.
Thank the council and staff for prioritizing and investing in safety through the Transportation Safety Vision Zero Action Plan.
Let the council members know why increasing street safety is important to you; how these quick-build improvements will improve safety for all users, especially people walking and biking.
You can email the council at cityclerk@sanjoseca.gov. If you live in San José and want to look up the email address for your council member, here is the link. Please copy me john@bikesiliconvalley.org when you send your email.
If you’re interested in learning more about our work or getting involved with Vision Zero, please contact John Cordes, John@bikesiliconvalley.org.