San Jose is building 880 km of bike lanes — but will they get more people cycling?
Community engagement
It found that 55 percent of residents (and up to 66 percent in equity priority areas) would like to bike more, but the lack of bike lanes with a protective element was one of the most common complaints.
According to city data, 75 percent of San Jose residents do not feel comfortable using bike lanes without protective barriers, and of the 52 traffic deaths in the city in 2018, 23 were cyclists or pedestrians.
With this in mind, the city is now placing an emphasis on the use of protected lanes where possible to encourage a modal shift.
“Our new plan is part of a movement happening across North America recognizing that there is much greater demand for biking, and that people who bike need safer, separated bikeways, and that cities will need to make hard choices about the allocation of road to meet this demand,” Madou said.
He added: “We also built our analysis on theLevel of Traffic Stressmethodologythat was first developed by researchers at San Jose State University and has matured through many applications since. Toole Design, our consultant on this project, helped us [add] new layers and data points to this analysis, allowing us to be make data-informed decisions across the entire 180 square miles of our city.”
To make the project more inclusive, the city partnered with three community groups representing people in neighborhoods where biking is statistically more dangerous and where protected lanes are needed most.
The groups,LUNA(Latinos United for a New America),VIVO(Vietnamese Voluntary Foundation) andVeggielution,which runs a community farm in the city’s low-income Mayfair neighborhood, each received a stipend in exchange for helping the city to spread the word about the bike lanes within their communities and providing feedback to the government.
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Story byCities Today
Cities Today is the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders.Cities Today is the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders.
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