TO: TRANSPORTATION AND FROM: John Ristow
ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: MOVE SAN JOSÉ PLAN DATE: 5/13/24
ANNUAL REPORT
Approved Date
5/22/24
RECOMMENDATION
Provide an annual report on key performance indicators in the Move San José Plan, with a focus on Transit First Policy implementation on corridors with the highest transit use and service corridors, including North First Street and Santa Clara Street.
BACKGROUND
Adopted by City Council in 2011, Envision San José 2040 General Plan (General Plan) sets the City’s long-term vision and social, economic, and environmental goals. Among the environmental goals noted in the General Plan is the City’s vision to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with regional and state standards. Since automobile pollutants are one of the largest contributors to emissions, San José seeks to minimize vehicle miles traveled across all transportation modes, especially those completed by single-occupancy vehicles.
The General Plan also promotes balanced, long-range, multimodal transportation goals and policies that provide for a safe, equitable, efficient, and sustainable transportation network.
Adopted in 2018, Climate Smart San José deepened the City’s commitment to transformative environmental action.
Move San José (MSJ Plan) embraces the ambitions of the goals and policies outlined in the General Plan and Climate Smart San José and converts them into actionable transportation strategies. The MSJ Plan is the citywide transportation plan that establishes a new approach for decision-making regarding transportation investments. Adopted by City Council in August 2022, the MSJ Plan uses strategic data- and equity-driven approaches to guide transportation projects, programs, and policies that will most effectively advance the City toward its goals. Through an equity-centered outreach campaign, the MSJ Plan distilled the City's goals from the General Plan and Climate Smart San José into nine goals and developed data-driven strategies to address them. The nine goals of the MSJ Plan are provided in the attached Appendix A. Over 400 transportation strategies were refined into 26 feasible, effective strategies organized across three categories: Streets, Transit, and Policies and Programs, shown below. For the full list of strategies, see Appendix A.
T&E AGENDA: 06/03/24
ITEM: (d) 4
TRANSPORTATION & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
May 13, 2024
Subject: Move San José Plan Annual Report
Figure 1- Move San José Categories of Strategies with Example Strategies As stated in the MSJ Plan, “You can't improve what you don't measure.” To ensure the MSJ Plan's nine goals remain actionable, City staff crafted key performance indicators to measure progress towards each goal. For example, the key performance indicators that measure the Access for All goal include measurements of bike network connectivity and cost of transportation as a percentage of income. These indicators promote the Access for All goal through their targeted measurement of access and equity. The full list of key performance indicators is provided in the attached Appendix B.
ANALYSIS
This annual report assesses progress since the adoption of Move San Jose through representative projects across the MSJ Plan’s three categories: streets, transit, and policies/programs.
Streets
The Streets category emphasizes building and maintaining infrastructure, especially transit, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure. DOT’s Story-Keyes Complete Street Project typifies this strategic approach by retrofitting the 2.3-mile Willow Street-Keyes Street-Story Road corridor between Hwy 87 and King Road. The Project will add separated bikeways and protected intersections to shorten pedestrian crossings and ease travel by bicycle; transit boarding islands, transit speed, and reliability improvements; and better lighting, among other improvements. The Project is along one of San José’s Vision Zero corridors and serves numerous equity-priority
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Subject: Move San José Plan Annual Report
communities.1 Once completed, the project will improve safety and enhance access, connecting several East San José neighborhoods and commercial hubs to other districts, including Calle Willow and Downtown.
Funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s One Bay Area Grant program and Active Transportation Program, the Story-Keyes Complete Street Project addresses a common impediment in shifting travelers toward alternative transportation modes: safety and access.
Reflected through their performance indicators, the City’s Transportation Safety goal and Access for All goal are identified in the MSJ Plan as low-performing areas needing improvement in 6 out of the city’s 10 council districts. Among the remedies, the MSJ Plan specifically points to targeting bicycle stress and creating better transit stops as methods to help address safety and access. The Story-Keyes Complete Street Project embodies this approach by constructing bike and transit-specific infrastructure to encourage shifts toward alternative modes. It also highlights DOT’s pivot toward building more low-stress bike facilities in service of the MSJ Plan safety and access goals. City staff are doing early work in preparation for this Project, including drafting a thorough outreach plan, building upon prior engagement efforts, and surveying the street to refine initial design plans.
Downtown Mobility Hubs
Mobility hubs are public spaces where people can easily access different forms of transportation.
By developing a center point where everything comes together, mobility hubs seamlessly ease the transition between different transportation options – for example, from a bus to an electric scooter or bike share bike. Given their versatility and the ability to create fluidity in the transportation network, mobility hubs are an embraced strategy in the MSJ Plan for every city district, supporting five out of the nine goals: Enjoyable Transportation, Transportation Safety, Less Driving, Clean the Air, and Connected Neighborhoods.
DOT was awarded $1.5 million in grant funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission Mobility Hub Program to develop two micromobility hubs Downtown. Both hubs will be on San Fernando Street, the first between Second and Third Streets and the second between Sixth and Seventh Streets. The planned mobility hubs may include streetlights, seating, secure bike and e-scooter parking, and pedestrian wayfinding.
Downtown San José, located in District 3, on average comprises some of the city’s lowest car ownership, resulting in a greater dependency on non-auto transportation. However, due to gaps within the transportation network for alternative modes, driving alone remains the top form of travel among commuters within District 3. In addition, the Downtown Transportation Plan (adopted in 2022) highlights mobility hubs and their unique ability to improve access, connectivity, and choice. Once completed, the mobility hubs will help close the gaps within the transportation network and make it easier for people to walk, bike, scoot, or ride transit. 1 Equity Priority Communities are census tracts that have a significant concentration of underserved populations, such as households with low incomes and people of color. Vision Zero is the City’s effort to reduce and eventually eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries.
TRANSPORTATION & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
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Subject: Move San José Plan Annual Report
Transit
The MSJ Plan’s Transit category reflects the City’s need for ubiquitous transit service. While the City does not control transit services, it does control the environment in which it operates, influencing people’s experience riding transit. DOT’s Airport Connector Project and the redesign of Diridon Station into a world-class transit center exemplify the many strategies that aim to influence San José’s transit spaces and counterbalance the dominance of driving. DOT is also implementing transit signal priority, which prioritizes transit services at intersections, for VTA buses throughout the city to improve passenger travel times, first on high-frequency transit routes and growing from there
Trips between Diridon Station and San José Mineta International Airport are primarily made by driving. In the district where the two transportation hubs are located, District 6, bus transit services are noncompetitive compared to driving, with bus transit services being 16% slower than driving and a transit connection taking about 40 minutes. Airport passenger traffic continues to climb, eclipsing 12 million in 2023. Further, Diridon Station will soon experience a significant growth in demand as electrified Caltrain, BART, and high-speed rail services come to the station. Directly connecting the Airport and Diridon Station and redeveloping Diridon Station to meet future demand will dramatically improve efficiency for travelers and reduce reliance on driving.
Policies and Programs
Aside from infrastructure, DOT has implemented policies and programs that move the City towards its goals. The initial action under the MSJ Plan was the adoption of the City’s Transit First Policy by City Council in August 2022. The policy is a strategy designed to put transit riders’ best interests first when making decisions about how to design streets, sidewalks, and access to transit stops by promoting various improvements along the street, such as wider sidewalks, transit-dedicated lanes with signal priority, separated bikeways, and ADA-compliant bus islands.
The Transit First Policy informs several current projects, including complete street redesigns of Monterey Road, King Road, North First Street, and Santa Clara Street. Planning, design, and environmental review for the Monterey Road project is funded by USDOT through its Reconnecting Communities Grant while the King Road project is funded by Caltrans’ Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant Program. Monterey Road and King Road experience some of San José’s highest bus ridership; however, both are some of San José’s lowestperforming transit corridors, according to key indicators like transit speed and daily on-time performance.
Since the adoption of the Transit First Policy, the City has accelerated efforts to implement transit signal priority (TSP) throughout the VTA Frequent Bus Route network. To improve the speed and reliability of transit services, TSP dynamically adjusts traffic signals to prioritize transit vehicles by increasing the frequency at which a bus gets a green light. San José uses a new cloud-based, central TSP system that does not require new equipment to be installed at a
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Subject: Move San José Plan Annual Report
traffic signal, which reduces long-term maintenance costs and facilitates a relatively fast and easily scalable deployment.
In addition to the emission benefits and reduction in vehicle miles traveled evaluation of our existing TSP deployments has shown a decrease in the time buses spend at red lights by up to 50% and an increase in the likelihood of buses passing through a green signal without stopping by up to 23%.
The City currently has central TSP deployed on 3 out of 20 VTA Frequent Bus Routes within San José. Through various grant funding sources, the City will complete the implementation of central TSP for all VTA Frequent Bus Routes within the next two years. See attached Appendix C for a map of current and funded TSP corridors.
The City also made its first significant shift in parking policy since 1965, re-evaluating the role of minimum parking requirements and updating the Parking and Transportation Demand Ordinance (Ordinance No. 30857) in December 2022. The policy update removed minimum parking requirements for development proposals in favor of other modes of transportation, placing San José among a select few cities across the country to utilize this unique approach to parking. The policy update created a new ordinance which took effect in April 2023 and requires development application packages to include a Transportation Demand Management Checklist.
To further support transportation demand management, DOT began its first Small Business Smart Pass Program in January 2024. Under the initiative, the City Manager has allocated a onetime funding of $200,000 to reimburse small businesses (35 employees or less) located in a parking meter district that provide transit passes to their employees. Reimbursements will begin in June 2024 and will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis with the goal to incentivize small businesses to offer more alternative transportation for their employees to commute.
Decision Support System
The Decision Support System (DSS) informs the implementation of the MSJ Plan. The DSS uses “big data” to measure key performance indicators from the MSJ Plan and understand changing conditions. This helps decision-makers select the best strategies and projects to address various deficiencies in the transportation system.
An initial version of the DSS was developed alongside the MSJ Plan in 2021-22. Currently, the DSS functions as an effective evaluation system, informing project prioritization by harnessing the needs assessment presented in the MSJ Plan at the macro scale and further understanding existing performance at the census tract level. This allows staff to visualize geographic disparities from a granular perspective for different goal areas and focus on projects that offer a more targeted and tailored approach. An example of the prioritized project list shaped by the existing version of the DSS is provided in the attached Appendix D.
TRANSPORTATION & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
May 13, 2024
Subject: Move San José Plan Annual Report
City staff envisioned a more robust version of the DSS during its initial development. An evolved DSS platform, DSS 2.0, will be able to fully track planned projects, monitor key indicator performance, and forecast project or strategy outcomes. DOT was awarded funding to update the Decision Support System (DSS 2.0) through Caltrans’ Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant Program in 2022. Development of DSS 2.0 began in September 2023 and is planned to be completed in February 2025.
COORDINATION
This memorandum has been coordinated with the City Attorney's Office and the City Manager's Budget Office.
/s/
JOHN RISTOW
Director of Transportation
For questions, please contact Ramses Madou, Division Manager, Planning, Policy, and Sustainability, at [email protected] or (408) 975-3283.
Link to the Move San José plan: https://gis.sanjoseca.gov/maps/movesj
ATTACHMENTS
Appendix - A
Appendix - B
Appendix - C
Appendix - D
APPENDIX – A
Figure 2 Move San Jose 9 Goals
Figure 3 Move San Jose Strategies and how they relate to the Plans goals APPENDIX – B
Figure 4 Move San Jose Key Performance Indicators and how they relate to the Plan's goals APPENDIX – C
Figure 5 City of San Jose Central Transit Signal Priority Status Map APPENDIX – D
Rank ID
Adopted
Plan Project Name
Project Location -
Street (On) Project Description Project Type
Asset
Classification Implementation Type # of KPIs
Base Prioritization
Score
Score w/
Regional Equity
Standards
Score w/ State
535 Equity
Standards
Score w/ State
Justice40 Equity
Standards
Score w/
USDOT Equity
Standards
1 4.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan Enhancing Santa Clara Street 17 23.00 23.00 23.00 34.50 23.00 2 10.00 ESJ MTIP Julian Bikeway to BART Capital Project Julian St 12 20.00 40.00 30.00 30.00 30.00 3 10.02 ESJ MTIP Julian Bikeway to BART Capital Project Julian St Add Separated Bike Lane Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility Quick Build 12 20.00 40.00 30.00 30.00 30.00 4 13.00 ESJ MTIP San Antonio Street US 101 Overcrossing Project San Antonio St Add Multi-use Path Bicycle
Bridges,
Overcrossings, &
Undercrossings
New Capital 15 20.00 50.00 30.00 30.00 30.00
5 14.00 WSJ MTIP Saratoga Ave Bikeway and Pedestrian Project Saratoga Ave 16 20.00 20.00 20.00 20.00 20.00 6 80.02 Better Bike
Plan Stevens Creek Boulvard Protected Bike Lane Stevens Creek Blvd Add Separated Bike Lane Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility Upgrade/Enhancement 14 20.00 30.00 20.00 30.00 20.00 7 48.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan San Pedro Street Paseo San Pedro St Add Plaza/Park Paseo Sidewalk, Crosswalk, Paseo Pedestrian New Capital 14 19.00 19.00 19.00 28.50 19.00 8 48.02 Downtown
Trans. Plan San Pedro Street Paseo San Pedro St Add Plaza/Park Paseo Sidewalk, Crosswalk, Paseo Pedestrian New Capital 14 19.00 19.00 19.00 28.50 19.00 9 51.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan Cinnabar Street Linear Connection Cinnabar St Add Grade Separated Bike/Pedestrian Facility Overcrossing /
Undercrossing
Bridges,
Overcrossings, &
Undercrossings
New Capital 14 19.00 19.00 19.00 28.50 19.00
10 64.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan
San Carlos Street Transit Priority
Improvements San Carlos St Improve Signal timing Complete Street Roadway New Capital 14 19.00 19.00 19.00 28.50 19.00 11 70.01 Better Bike
Plan Julian Street Bike Lane Julian St Add Bike Lane (unprotected) Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 14 19.00 38.00 28.50 28.50 28.50 12 77.01 Better Bike
Plan Taylor Street Bike Lane Taylor St Add Bike Lane (unprotected) Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 14 19.00 19.00 28.50 28.50 28.50 13 77.05 Better Bike
Plan Taylor Street Bike Boulevard Taylor St Add Bike Boulevard Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 14 19.00 19.00 19.00 28.50 19.00 14 101.03 Better Bike
Plan The Alameda Protected Bike Lane The Alameda Add Separated Bike Lane Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 15 19.00 19.00 19.00 28.50 19.00 15 107.01 Better Bike
Plan Market Street Protected Bike Lane Market St Add Separated Bike Lane Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 14 19.00 47.50 19.00 28.50 28.50 16 132.00 ESJ MTIP E. Santa Clara Street US 101 Overcrossing Project Santa Clara St 15 19.00 47.50 28.50 28.50 28.50 17 132.01 ESJ MTIP E. Santa Clara Street US 101 Overcrossing Project Santa Clara St Add Multi-use Path Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility Quick Build 15 19.00 47.50 28.50 28.50 28.50 18 3.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan
Barack Obama Boulevard Bicycle and
Pedestrian Connection Barack Obama Blvd Add Separated Bike Lane Complete Street Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 12 18.00 18.00 18.00 27.00 18.00 19 15.00 WSJ MTIP Meridian Ave Bikeway and Pedestrian Project Meridian Ave 15 18.00 18.00 18.00 27.00 27.00 20 18.03 WSJ MTIP Hedding St Bikeway and Pedestrian Project Hedding St Add Separated Bike Lane Complete Street Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 13 18.00 18.00 18.00 18.00 18.00 21 26.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan
San Salvador Street Bicycle Priority
Improvements San Salvador St Add Bike Cycletrack Bicycle Bicycle & Micromobility New Capital 15 18.00 45.00 18.00 27.00 18.00 22 27.03 Downtown
Trans. Plan
Julian-St. James "Livable Streets" Couplet
Conversion Julian St Modify Interchange Interchange Roadway New Capital 15 18.00 18.00 18.00 27.00 18.00 23 29.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan
Almaden Boulevard Bicycle and Pedestrian
Connection Almaden Blvd Complete Street 14 18.00 45.00 18.00 27.00 18.00 24 48.01 Downtown
Trans. Plan San Pedro Street Paseo San Pedro St Add Plaza/Park Paseo Sidewalk, Crosswalk, Paseo Pedestrian New Capital 13 18.00 18.00 18.00 27.00 18.00 25 50.00 Downtown
Trans. Plan Del Monte Park Expansion Home St Add Plaza/Park Paseo Other Pedestrian New Capital 14 18.00 18.00 18.00 27.00 18.00 Figure 6 Prioritization List of Top 25 Planned Projects based on the Decision Support System