Infrastructure Privilege Ride Exposes Stark Safety Divides
Infrastructure Privilege Ride riders gather at San Jose City Hall as San Jose Bicycle Coalition Policy Director Sandhya Laddha, center, provides pre-ride briefing. At right, Gina and Steve LaBlanc, who lost son Kyle, struck by the driver of a tow truck while walking in a bike lane, attend to urge investment in road safety infrastructure.
With San Jose’s roadway deaths climbing to a record 65 in 2022, old approaches to traffic that put cars above neighborhood life, safety, and equitable treatment of communities are drawing urgent calls for change.
The momentum came through clearly last week, as more than 30 San Jose government officials and community members mounted bicycles and e-bikes at City Hall early Friday morning. They were about to set out for an “Infrastructure Privilege Tour,” organized by SVBC and the San Jose Department of Transportation.
One of the most important decisions a city makes is the budget and San Jose has just entered budget season. Mayor Matt Mahan has pulled together five transition committees to help advise the budget process, one of which is on traffic enforcement and includes SVBC Executive Director Shiloh Ballard.
The ride was organized to help policy makers understand real solutions as they start to shape this year's budget — and SVBC is demanding a level of funding that meets the need, demonstrated by the record number of fatalities.
Along the route, ride participants saw and felt first-hand the stark differences in infrastructure — and the impact on comfort and safety for bikers, pedestrians and all road users.
Some areas, primarily affluent, were calm and comfortable, benefitting from improvements that slowed traffic and separated drivers from other road users. Other, needier neighborhoods were frightening in their proximity to gritty multi-lane roads and speeding drivers — and the unequal impact of injuries and deaths.
The Challenge — and a Solution
San Jose Police respond to an average 20 collisions every day, with 10 major injuries daily, and one death a week, SVBC Policy Director Sandhya Laddha told the group, before they set out along Santa Clara Street. It’s a drain on police and emergency services that could be better used for public safety, and of health care costs, and in “the quality of life and the vacuum in the lives of those impacted,” said Laddha.
San Jose DOT Program Manager John Brazil noted that many of the injuries and deaths occur on just 3 percent of the city’s streets.
Many of San Jose’s collisions, injuries and deaths occur on just 3 percent of the city’s streets, notes San Jose Department of Transportation’s John Brazil.
“Do you think those are calm neighborhood streets? They’re usually busy, multiple-lane high-speed streets,” he said. “Another aspect of this whole ride is privilege and equity. Are we treating people equitably, and not just serving neighborhoods that cry the loudest or are the most affluent?”
The solution seems simple. Infrastructure. And a highly regarded Vision Zero plan to get to zero fatalities was approved by the city, one of the first in the nation, nearly a decade ago.
But following through requires a priority by decision-makers on funding, and on staffing for project delivery. Progress has been slow even as deaths and injuries mount, Laddha said.
Hence the ride, to bring many parts of the decision structure together to live the bicyclist and pedestrian experience, see inequity between neighborhoods, and share in the awareness and urgency for solution.
“It has been shown time and time again that infrastructure is the ultimate solution to safety,” Laddha said.
Momentum Builds
In a significant showing of momentum in the movement for safer streets the tour drew three newly elected City Council members — Rosemary Kamei, Omar Torres, and Bien Doan — plus councilmember David Cohen and councilmember Dev Davis’s chief of staff, Mary Anne Groen. Mountain View Mayor Alison Hicks took in the tour as well. Doan is new Vice Chair of the city’s Vision Zero Task Force, and he and Kamei are co-chairs of the city Traffic Enforcement transition committee.
Also on board were many others including San Jose DOT senior staff, including Division Manager Ramses Madou, Deputy Director Jessica Zenk, Program Managers Brazil and Ryan Smith, and city budget director and deputy city manager Jim Shannon and Rob Lloyd. Community organization leaders included the executive director and the co-director of Latinos United for a New America (LUNA), Mayra Pelagio and Tony Romero.
To all who took part, thank you for demonstrating your commitment to safe streets!
Taking to the Street
Riders started along busy downtown thoroughfares, first pedaling east from City Hall on Santa Clara Street, then south on 10th Street, where concrete islands separate bikers from busy car lanes.
We then turned east on William Street through the community of Naglee Park. Decades ago, this neighborhood suffered from high traffic as cars cut through neighborhoods for destinations including San Jose State University and San Jose Hospital. People organized and fought for traffic-calming measures, which include designs in the form of traffic diverters and concrete islands that slim lanes and cause drivers to slow.
As the tour continued east, we saw that on the other side of Coyote Creek, in the Olinder neighborhood, these types of traffic calming measures do not exist. The result is that William Street through Naglee has half as many crashes as William Street on the Olinder side. This is one of the City’s most obvious examples of how street design can increase neighborhood safety and improve quality of life.
Images below show the contrast in crash numbers along William Street on the Naglee Park side, and across the river, the Olinder side, in city data from 2016-2021. See the full city dataset. Aerial and street-level photos below show examples of extended intersection curbs to slow drivers on turns, and of concrete dividers to calm traffic by visually narrowing the road and to separate cyclists and pedestrians from traffic. City officials noted that these measures improve safety for all road users — pedestrians, cyclists and drivers — without reducing road capacity.
Riders then cruised down the newly paved Coyote Creek Trail, stopping at the end at Story Road to learn about the trail, Story, and Senter Road. Senter is one of the city’s Vision Zero corridors, corridors with a disproportionate number of deaths and injuries. The City recently finished a quick-build project on Senter to slow drivers through the use of paint and flex-hit posts. Six months later, the number of collisions have dropped on Senter.
See the city’s video showing the before and after on Senter Road.
We then returned along Story and Keyes, Virginia Street, Guadalupe Creek, and Almaden Boulevard.
“This is a trap for poor folks,” Omar Torres, the San Jose CIty Councilman representing the downtown district, tells the tour during a pause on Virginia Street just off Almaden Avenue, discussing the need for road safety infrastructure.
The frustration in Omar Torres’s voice was clear, at one stop along a residential stretch of Virginia.
“Talk about pedestrian safety, this is a neighborhood where we learned our lesson,” Torres told the gathering, bunched along the sidewalk to avoid passing cars. The newly elected City Council member for the downtown district, raised in the area, waved an arm toward nearby Almaden Avenue, where drivers were roaring by.
Densely trafficked multi-lane one-way streets slice through the area’s homes, funneling drivers in and out of downtown and highways 87 and 280.
“This is a trap for poor folks. And, well, you know why,” Torres said. “Because it’s an under-resourced neighborhood.”
A Family Grieves
Before setting out on the Infrastructure Privilege Tour, the riders and onlookers gathered quietly to hear from Gina LaBlanc, there with her husband, Steve.
They cradled a poster with a photo of their son, Kyle, fatally struck one January evening in 2016 while on foot in a bike lane, by a person driving a tow-truck.
Kyle had just turned 18. He was looking forward to being the DJ at a Valentine’s Day dance, and then to prom and graduation. He dreamed of future in computers
“This dream ended and our lives were shattered, all because of a preventable crash,” Gina said.
Kyle was near the Curtner light rail station at Curtner Avenue and the Highway 87 underpass, headed for home, at about 5 pm. The lights were out. It was dark. The crosswalks were confusing, and there were no signs for pedestrians. He walked down a dirt path that should have been a sidewalk, and to avoid a puddle, stepped into the bike path, said Gina. The driver, traveling too fast for the wet and dark conditions, cut across the bike path toward a freeway onramp and struck her son.
“My son is one of many pedestrian fatalities that have occurred in San Jose. Some changes have been made in this area but it isn’t fast enough. It has been seven years since we lost our son and more people are dying,” Gina told the assembly.
“As a city we have to do better. Our city leaders must have the political will to invest in the safety of our most vulnerable road users,” she said. “Vision zero is not a dream. Zero is actually possible, it has been done, and we know how to get there, and zero is the only morally acceptable number.”
“The pedestrians and bicyclists who have died and those who are injured matter. Kyle matters. Please remember him today.”
Fund Vision Zero
San Jose saw a record 65 traffic fatalities by the end of 2022. And that is unacceptable. Although San Jose leaders have committed to funding Vision Zero, our communities cannot afford the pace at which the city is currently funding and implementing Vision Zero. We need Vision Zero funded and implemented now! We are demanding that our city leaders prioritize funding and implementing Vision Zero in the next two fiscal years.