TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND FROM: Mayor Matt Mahan
CITY COUNCIL Vice Mayor Pam Foley
Councilmember Pamela Campos
Councilmember Peter Ortiz
Councilmember Bien Doan
SUBJECT: 2025 Vision Zero Action Plan DATE: February 21, 2025 Approved Date 02/21/2025
RECOMMENDATION
Approve staff recommendation with the following additional direction:
1. Continue collaboration both interdepartmentally and with interagency partners that were members of the Vision Zero Task Force (e.g., Santa Clara County Roads and Airports, Valley Transportation Authority, Santa Clara County Emergency Medical Services, etc.) on Vision Zero work. Include an update on interagency and interdepartmental collaboration in the biannual Vision Zero report to the Transportation and Environment (T&E) Committee.
2. Explore options to accelerate the deployment of quick build traffic safety treatments with the goal of delivering quick build projects within one year - from planning to construction. Include findings in the next Vision Zero report to the T&E Committee.
BACKGROUND
In 2020, the City Council adopted the 2020 Vision Zero Action Plan which created a framework for how the City of San José would address a disturbing increase in traffic fatalities by reducing the number of fatalities with the goal of eventually eliminating fatalities. Since the 2020 Action Plan was adopted, the City has completed a large amount of work to move the needle on traffic safety. This effort includes installing 19 miles of quick build safety improvements along segments of Priority Safety Corridors, developing a data analytics tool to better analyze crash and injury trends, receiving about $90 million in grant and earmark funds for safety improvements, and building over a thousand individual safety projects ranging from minor signal work to comprehensive pedestrian safety enhancement projects.
CITY COUNCIL AGENDA: 02/25/2025
FILE: 25-151
ITEM: 5.1
One other action item following the adoption of the 2020 Vision Zero Action Plan was the creation of a Vision Zero Task Force. The Task Force, composed of eighteen members representing various city departments, interagency partners, elected officials, and community advocates, was tasked with exploring solutions for traffic safety in San José. Since 2020, the Task Force held fifteen meetings, which were open to the public. The Vision Zero Task Force effectively brought new attention to the issue of traffic safety, encouraged collaboration both interdepartmentally and across different agencies countywide, and comprehensively examined the City of San José’s Vision Zero program. As a final duty, the Vision Zero Task Force was engaged extensively on the creation of the new 2025 Vision Zero Action Plan and ultimately recommended adoption of the Plan to City Council.
With the 2025 Vision Zero Action Plan completed, the Vision Zero Task Force has served its purpose. It’s now time to transition the City’s Vision Zero work away from meetings and towards action.
The 2025 Vision Zero Action Plan includes ambitious but achievable goals with specific and measurable deliverables for each priority action area. The headline goal is a 30% reduction in traffic-related fatal and severe injuries by 2030 and an elimination of fatal and severe injuries by 2040. Achieving this significant reduction in fatal and severe injuries on our streets will require bold action from City staff and the Council. The 2025 Vision Zero Action Plan also marks a critical transition of the City to a Safe System Approach to traffic safety, a new paradigm that focuses on human mistakes and human vulnerability and emphasizes system designs that account for this.
One of the key benefits of the Vision Zero Task Force was a focus on interdepartmental and interagency collaboration. There is significant value in this collaboration, particularly with the City’s new focus on a holistic Safe System Approach. We therefore recommend City staff continue this collaboration beyond the sunsetting of the Vision Zero Task Force and report on the collaboration in the biannual Vision Zero report to the T&E Committee.
Quick build (i.e., paint and plastic) traffic safety treatments are one of the most effectual tools the City has to improve safety on our streets. This is largely due to the nature of quick build interventions being cheap and easy to implement. However, quick build treatments have not always been as quick as the name would imply. We recommend that staff explore options to accelerate the deployment of quick build infrastructure such that deployment takes less than one year from the planning phase to construction.
While the priority focus of Vision Zero is enhancing transportation safety, we should consider this work also in the context of our ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and our efforts to promote multi-modalism. Given this nexus, we encourage staff to collaborate across departments and elevate Vision Zero action items that achieve related goals in Climate Smart San José and other adopted plans.
Providing for public safety is one of the most important duties of our city government. All fatal and severe injuries on our streets are tragic and entirely preventable. We’d like to thank all the members of the Vision Zero Task Force for their role in the creation of this Action Plan, particularly the community advocates representing the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, San Francisco Bay Area Families for Safe Streets, and AARP. We’d also like to thank the City’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advocacy Committee (BPAC) for their valuable input in the creation of this plan and their commitment to Vision Zero.
The signers of this memorandum have not had, and will not have, any private conversation with any other member of the City Council, or that member’s staff, concerning any action discussed in the memorandum, and that each signer’s staff members have not had, and have been instructed not to have, any such conversation with any other member of the City Council or that member's staff.