A San Jose task force aimed at finding ways to eliminate traffic deaths will retire at the end of the year, and while improvements have been made to traffic safety, the city still has work to do to reduce deaths.
San José recorded its highest rate of traffic deaths in recent history in 2022 with 65 deaths reported. That number fell to 49 last year, according to the Vision Zero task force, which the city launched in 2020 to reduce traffic deaths by improving and optimizing roads. As a final task, the task force of city officials, employees and community advocates is developing a new five-year plan to proactively increase traffic safety that will soon fall to the San José City Council to enforce. Councilors are due to adopt the plan by the end of this year.
Councilwoman and District 9 Task Force Chair Pam Foley said the plan will consider accountability measures to ensure the city meets its goals of reducing traffic deaths even without the task force, including examining the most effective strategies for traffic safety improvements.
“Sending this to a council committee like the Transportation and Environment Committee makes a lot of sense because then these issues will be elevated beyond the task force to five city council members, and then to the council beyond that,” Foley told San José Spotlight.
Diana Crumedy, a member of the Vision Zero and Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition task force, said she hopes pedestrian safety advocates can continue to provide feedback and have conversations with city officials about the program.
“I’ve really been encouraging us to create an opportunity for the community, which is like our eyes and ears on the street, the people who are experiencing these casualties and these unsafe conditions firsthand,” she told San José Spotlight. “They know when the city comes in and makes an improvement, and whether or not the improvement is effective.”
Foley said the end of the task force doesn’t mean the community won’t have input on the city’s plans.
“They will still have an opportunity, and particularly through the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee,” he said.
San Jose became the fourth city nationwide to adopt a Vision Zero initiative in 2015 to analyze traffic data and develop safety programs; The same year, the city reached its all-time high of 60 traffic deaths. Traffic deaths in the city grew by 37% between 2008 and 2019 at a time when the city’s population grew by less than 10%. Traffic deaths have fluctuated in recent years, with 60 in 2019, 49 in 2020 and 60 in 2021 before the record high in 2022.
Jesse Mintz-Roth, director of the city’s Vision Zero program, said this year’s traffic deaths so far appear to be in line with last year’s drop in deaths, with 20 deaths this year through June.
“We have our fingers crossed that this is a new trend that will stick,” he told San José Spotlight.
Since 2020, Foley said the city has developed 19 miles of rapid construction. Road safety improvements along segments of its priority safety corridors, along with 400 interchangeable message signs. The city has received about $90 million in allocated funds and grants for traffic safety improvements since 2021, resulting in more than 1,000 safety projects, according to the task force. Historically dangerous roads The intersections identified by the task force that received safety improvements include four of the intersections with the highest number of deaths and serious injuries near Senter Road and McLaughlin Avenue.
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San Jose is also among six cities piloting a project to use traffic cameras in school zones and safety corridors to catch speeding drivers and reduce traffic accidents and deaths. Traffic enforcement officers have doubled to focus on such efforts.
Former Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition leader Shiloh Ballard said she doesn’t expect the city to stop accelerating to reduce traffic deaths.
“And the advocacy community remains very, very strong,” Ballard told San José Spotlight. “So if it looks like we’re failing to get together and reduce deaths on our streets and reduce the number of accidents, you can bet the (bicycle coalition) advocacy community and other pedestrian advocates are going to be in town.”
Contact Vicente Vera at [email protected] or follow @VicenteJVera on X, formerly known as Twitter.
