TO: TRANSPORTATION AND FROM: John Ristow
ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: MOVE SAN JOSÉ AND DATE: February 16, 2022
SUPPORTIVE POLICIES UPDATE
Approved Date
2/28/22
RECOMMENDATION
Accept the status report on the City's Move San José Plan, Transit First Policy, and Council Policy 5-1 update.
BACKGROUND
San José's leaders set ambitious transportation goals in the Envision San José 2040 General Plan and Climate Smart San José. These goals envision a sustainable and human-centered transportation system that supports a more equitable, environmentally sustainable, dynamic, dense, and transit-oriented city. This year the Department of Transportation (DOT) will bring the City Council a number of plans and policies that implement these ambitious goals.
The first is an implementation plan to facilitate San José's transition to this envisioned future:
Move San José (formerly called the Access & Mobility Plan). Two key policies are tied to the outcomes of Move San José (Plan): the Transit First Policy and Council Policy 5-1 “Transportation Analysis.” These policies are considered together with the Plan because they are critical ingredients for shaping City action. Separate, complementary efforts, include the Downtown Transportation Plan, the Parking and Transportation Demand Management Ordinance, the Emerging Mobility Action Plan, and the West San José Multi-modal transportation improvement plan.
Developing and adopting a City Transit First Policy was named a council priority in February 2020. This Policy will give clear guidance on transit's use of the street. It will lay out ways to improve transit, creating a more efficient San José that runs buses and trains more frequently and on time. Council directed staff to include a framework that achieves our mobility goals, transit accessibility, efficiency, and affordability in this policy. The Council specifically asked staff to consider, but not limit itself to, bus-only lanes, queue jumps, signal coordination, signal priority, and other efforts to improve transit travel speeds on critical corridors.
T&E AGENDA: 03/07/2022
ITEM: (d) 4
TRANSPORTATION AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
February 16, 2022
Subject: Move San José and Supportive Policies Update
In February 2018, Council Policy 5-1 "Transportation Analysis Policy" replaced the previous Council Policy 5-3, "Transportation Impact Policy," as the Policy for transportation development review in San José. This Policy aligned the City's CEQA rules and transportation analysis with California Senate Bill 743 (SB 743) and goals as outlined in the City's Envision San José 2040 General Plan. Council passed Policy 5-1 with direction to return to Council with potential updates based on lessons learned.
Link to Plan:
https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-offices/transportation/projectsplanning/move-san-jose
ANALYSIS
Move San José
The Envision San José 2040 General Plan requires significant changes to the transportation and land-use systems, changes that will support economic growth and equity, protect the environment, and improve the lives of the City's residents and employees. Climate Smart San José doubles down on the importance of these changes to achieve adopted climate goals. Move San José is a strategic implementation plan to focus the City's efforts on the most effective and efficient transportation actions. Move San José outlines the strategies, decision-making processes, and analytics to meet the City's ambitious goals.
Move San José used an innovative approach to create community-driven perspective, institutional insights, and technical tools to fashion a clear picture of what is needed now and how to adapt the Plan to changing conditions over the life of its implementation. The team brought together best practices in equity-centered community engagement, insights from around the country and region, data-driven decision making, and institutional alignment to accomplish this. The team developed Move San José under four workstreams:
The Move San José team implemented a multi-lingual and multi-platform process that focused on hearing from San José residents who have not traditionally been part of City decision-making.
Through partnerships with community-based organizations (CBOs), six workshops, over 23 neighborhood groups meetings, online surveys and open houses, focus groups, and the
TRANSPORTATION AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
February 16, 2022
Subject: Move San José and Supportive Policies Update
development of community profiles, over 1,400 residents collaborated in developing Move San José.
Rather than a traditional citywide plan that
produces a static list of projects, Move San José
developed a decision support system that can stick
with the City over time. This decision support
system uses Big Data and Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) to understand changing
conditions, help decision-makers select the best
strategies and projects to address deficiencies, and
track performance toward the City's ambitious
goals. This system is one of the critical outcomes
of Move San José and will continue to be a part of
the City's transportation planning processes.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) also took a look at itself to answer the question, "Are we organized to deliver on the Plan's goals?" Through 42 DOT staff interviews and process investigations, the consultant completed an independent assessment of the department's organizational effectiveness. The DOT has gained insight into better prioritizing its work, establishing efficient operating procedures, developing staff skills and capacity, and structuring itself for success through the evaluation.
TRANSPORTATION AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
February 16, 2022
Subject: Move San José and Supportive Policies Update
Strategies
To determine how to meet these goals, the Move San José team solicited input from our CBO partners, the public, and transportation professionals, and reviewed model transportation plans from across the country to identify over 400 potential strategies. To focus the analysis on strategies that had the most significant potential to meet our goals, the team shared a survey with leading industry professionals and City staff to evaluate each strategy's ability to meet established goals/KPIs and the feasibility of implementation. Respondents of the survey also scored each strategy based on equity benefits and/or impacts.
The project team narrowed the list to 26 highly effective and feasible strategies for further evaluation based on the survey and additional public engagement. The team evaluated and ranked each strategy based on its ability to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Strategies were also correlated to the KPIs for each goal area.
The 26 strategies fall into three main categories, shown below, with a few of the strategies in each category highlighted. To see the full description of the 26 Strategies, visit the Move San José website "Strategies" section: https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departmentsoffices/transportation/projects-planning/move-san-jose/amp-strategies District Needs
The team assessed each council district in San José to identify significant mobility and accessibility needs and prioritize area-specific strategies. The assessment analyzed how the
TRANSPORTATION AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
February 16, 2022
Subject: Move San José and Supportive Policies Update
district is performing across Move San José goals. Each goal area has an associated set of metrics grouped to estimate a single score. The team also compared the performance of each metric between the district as a whole and for the equity priority communities that are within that district to identify any disparities in metric performance. Once the greatest needs within the district were identified, the team compared these needs to what is currently planned in that area.
The team combined this data-driven analysis with the community outreach to identify the final set of recommended priority strategies.
Through outreach and engagement, the team heard what types of strategies residents need and where they should be implemented. The team identified where there is overlap between outreach and the data-driven analysis to inform the final recommendations for each District. Although each District likely needs improvement on all the goal areas, the analysis prioritizes given limited time, resources, and funding.
Citywide Transit First Policy
Transit is becoming less competitive with private automobile travel, as transit vehicles get stuck in traffic, cost more to operate, and become less reliable. As the City grows, a policy that makes space-efficient travel modes like transit, bicycling, and walking more viable is needed to maintain our mobility.
District 3 Goal Scores
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 Less Driving
Access for All
Enjoyable Transportation
Transportation Safety
Clean the Air
20 Minute Neighborhoods
Connected Neighborhoods
Move the Economy
Plan for the Future
How do our goal areas perform in D3?
District 3 City Average
Closer to our goal
TRANSPORTATION AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
February 16, 2022
Subject: Move San José and Supportive Policies Update
The proposed Transit First Policy is based on best practices research and expert knowledge, including from a working group comprised of City and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) staff. It matches industry-leading design with local considerations to achieve a policy that is best suited to San José.
While VTA operates transit, the City controls the streets, including their design and operations.
The Transit First Policy will enable the City to play its part to improve transit operations and riders experience. The Policy recommends three areas of action for the City. One is to make a clear policy statement on the value and priority of the transit system and its use of City streets.
The second is an update to the General Plan's roadway diagram to classify more streets where frequent transit operates as Grand Boulevards, the classification that prioritizes transit over other modes. The last element of the Policy is a Transit First Toolkit that outlines what types of technology, designs, and infrastructure should be used to support transit. Altogether, the Policy will give clear direction to staff on where and when transit should be prioritized. This will lead to more signal prioritization, transit-only travel lanes, and an emphasis on improving passenger waiting areas and access to those areas.
Council Policy 5-1 – Transportation Analysis
San José was the fourth city in California to implement SB 743. Council passed Policy 5-1 with direction to return to Council with potential updates based on lessons learned. Since the adoption of the Policy in 2018, land use development in San José has provided substantial information to evaluate the performance of the Policy and its impact on City goals. And parallel efforts in San José (Housing Crisis Work Plan, Move San José, and Transit First Policy) and within Santa Clara County (Countywide Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Tool release) create an opportunity to update Policy 5-1 to increase consistency and streamline the development review process.
Staff recommends policy and technical changes to Policy 5-1 that address equity and housing concerns and regional consistency. Staff analysis, based on Council direction to find ways to enable more housing, supports expanding the area of the City where affordable housing projects are exempt from CEQA transportation analysis. Staff also recommends allowing all housing projects meeting the land use policies of the General Plan have access to the Policy's Significant and Unavoidable Impacts program in high VMT areas. This program allows land use projects that have Significant and Unavoidable CEQA Impacts to pay a fee for transportation improvements proportionate to the impact they have. Land use projects that use the program must mitigate their VMT within their project or the immediate area of the project as best as possible and then pay the fee on VMT not mitigated beyond that. Lastly, staff will update and align the Policy's implementation by updating the baseline VMT calculations and adopting the VTA Countywide VMT calculator that was developed based on the City's calculator.
CONCLUSION
TRANSPORTATION AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
February 16, 2022
Subject: Move San José and Supportive Policies Update
Transportation accounts for over 60% of San José's greenhouse gas emissions, defines access to opportunity, represents 15% of household costs on average, and is a primary enabler of urbanization, and continued economic growth. With City Council's leadership and support of Move San José and the many planning and policy efforts coming for consideration this year, the City can tackle significant equity, environmental, urban, and economic goals. Staff expects to bring forward Move San José, the Transit Policy, and the Council Policy 5-1 update to Council this Spring.
COORDINATION
This memorandum has been coordinated with the City Attorney's office. The development of the Move San Jose was coordinate with PBCE, ESD, OED/CMO, as well as VTA and MTC through an Executive Steering Committee that has given strategic direction. Staff from the same departments and outside agencies have also been part of workshops to develop strategies for the plan. VTA staff is also on the project management team. /s/
JOHN RISTOW
Director of Transportation
For questions, please contact Ramses Madou, Division Manager, Planning, Policy, and Sustainability, Department of Transportation, at (408) 975-3283.