SAN JOSE, Calif (KRON) — In San Jose, city officials have unanimously approved a plan that is aimed to significantly increase bike ridership and make roads safer citywide.
San Jose City Council unanimously approved the Better Bike Plan 2025 on Oct. 6 in an effort to make roads safer for bicyclists, increase bike ridership by 2040, and create an equitable bicycle network for everyone.
“The city has some bold and necessary goals set out in its general plan as well as its climate smart plan to drastically increase the use of bicycles and other non-auto vehicle modes within the city,” said Ramses Madou, city of San Jose’s Department of Transportation Division Manager of Planning, Policy, and Sustainability.
“This plan gets us to about 550 plus miles of bikeways that we would hope people would feel safe sending their eight-year-old’s and 80 year-old’s, should be able to use these systems once they get built out.”
The city’s Department of Transportation led the effort and will focus on advacing bikeway safety and accessibility over the next five years by:
- Using temporary street closures currently implemented for COVID-19 outdoor restaurant use, and other city locations, for permanent pedestrian and bike-only paths;
- Pursue regional, state and federal funding to implement Bike Plan 2025;
- Focus on creating an equitable and thriving bike culture to improve mobility for low-income neighborhoods by providing safe, high-quality bike routes and educational programs by working with community organizations and philanthropic partners for funding and;
- Connecting East and West San Jose through new, “low-stress” safe bike routes that also connect neighborhoods to downtown resources.
The plan acknowledges there is still much left to do to fix the city’s on-street bikeways to make riders comfortable for most residents — with 75 percent of San Jose residents say they do not feel comfortable using bike lanes without physical barriers according to data collected by the city.
In 2018 — the city created the Better Bikeways initiative, an effort to redesign several streets throughout the city to make them safer and more separated from vehicles. — with 4.4 miles of protected bikeways, 1.5 miles of new bike lanes, and 5 miles of shared lanes on calm streets.
Currently there are nearly 400 miles of on-street bikeways throughout the city of San Jose through the previous major goal of San Jose Bike Plan 2020 which was adopted in 2009.
“We work with all cities across San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and San Jose is definitely leading the way when it comes to bicycle infrastructure in these two counties,” said Sandhya Laddha, San Mateo County advocate at Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.
“It is a very comprehensive plan and extensive effort of two years put in by the city staff, so kudos to the city staff for pulling this off.”
Laddha says the non-profit is focused on helping more residents feel comfortable about riding bikes in the city by advocating for better biking infrastructure and continuing to advise residents to stop using their vehicles as much as possible.
“We are the only organization in San Mateo and Santa Clara County who are striving for better bike infrastructure and policies,” said Laddha.
“We are lacking way behind in terms of providing bike parking … so if these are the issues that we can start addressing definitely we can get more people to bike.”
According to the Better Bike Plan 2025 — the city of San Jose is working towards building an “environmentally sustainable and people focused city” with a goal of reducing vehicle usage and increasing bike trips by 2040 to 15 %.
Data collected by the city shows 55% of San Jose residents want to bike more with the new bike plan set to deliver 600 miles of bikeways including 104 miles of new protected lanes, 253 miles of existing bike lanes to be upgraded to protected, and 102 miles of bike boulevards.
“The vision for the plan is to make a system where people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds feel comfortable bicycling to all locations within the city,” said Madou.
“The outreach of this plan is one of our proudest points, we worked with a few community-based organizations … to reach parts of the community that traditionally haven’t been comfortable talking to the government.”
In conducting the new plan the city made a point of ensuring participation from historically underrepresented communities including:
- Lower-income residents and workers
- Communities of color
- People with limited English proficiency (LEP)
- Youth
- Seniors
- People with physical disabilities
Based on their deep understanding of local, underserved communities, three San Jose-bases community-based organizations were invited to partner throughout the project with Veggielution, LUNA, and ViVo.
Click here for an interactive map of proposed and existing bikeways.