Why is this a Climate Smart indicator? 

• Transportation generates over half of greenhouse gas emissions in San José, and reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is one of the Climate Smart Plan’s four key strategies to cut emissions.

• Densifying the city and improving walkability, biking, and transit access reduces reliance on single-occupancy vehicles and supports lower-emission travel.

• Expanding Complete Streets (those that safely accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and drivers) helps create a safer, more sustainable transportation system and provides a clear way to track progress toward reduced emissions.

What is the City doing to make progress on this indicator? 

Completed

• San José Complete Streets Design Standards & Guidelines, describing a vision and best available practices for designing streets that are comfortable, safe and welcoming for all modes of travel (adopted 2018)
• BART Silicon Valley Phase I (began service in 2020)
• Better Bike Plan 2025 (adopted October 2020)
• Transportation Analysis Policy to shift the focus of developments’ transportation improvements to pedestrian, bicycle and transit facilities (adopted in 2018, updated in 2022)
• Emerging Mobility Action Plan (adopted 2022)
• Move San José, a new transportation strategy for San José (adopted August 2022)
• Transit First Policy (adopted August 2022)
• West San José Multimodal Transportation Improvement Plan, which includes short-term quick-build street re-design improvements to be completed by 2027, and mid/long term critical street improvements to be completed by 2040 (adopted December 2022)
• Walk Safe San José Plan (completed 2024)
• Vision Zero Action Plan (adopted 2020, updated 2025) and Quick Build team
• Connect North San José: The North San José Multimodal Transportation Improvement Plan (adopted April 2026)

In Progress/Ongoing

• Transit-priority complete streets projects, along the Story Road – Keyes Street corridor and Monterey Road, as part of the implementation of the City’s Transit First Policy
• Implementation of the following:
  • Emerging Mobility Action Plan
  • Vision Zero Action Plan
  • Downtown Better BikewaySJ Network
  • Connect North San José
• Reimagining Santa Clara Street: Developing a corridor concept to guide future complete streets and transit improvements

Planned

• Transit-priority complete streets plan(s) for Stevens Creek-San Carlos corridor, Santa Clara Street, and King Road.

Evaluating

• Expand use of quick-build approaches to accelerate delivery of complete streets improvements
• Integrate transit and/or pedestrian priority features (e.g., bus lanes, signal priority, enhanced crossings) into more complete streets projects
• Incorporate more climate-responsive design elements (e.g., shade, cooling, stormwater features) into future street projects, as funding allows
• Strategies to support placemaking, programming, and long-term maintenance of complete streets corridors

About the data

Sources

The Complete Streets metric measures the percentage of San José streets that accommodate all users, including pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and drivers, based on the presence of key infrastructure elements. These include sidewalks, bikeways, and transit service.

Data is pulled from the San José Department of Transportation’s Decision Support System (DSS) which measures and tracks a number of the City’s transportation KPIs. The Complete Streets metric in the Update is calculated based on a Complete Streets index that was custom developed for San José. It measures the proportion of street segments that have an index score greater than or equal to 1 out of 3, which indicates some level of presence of sidewalks on both sides of the street, Class II or better bikeways, and/or transit service on Grand Boulevard-designated rights-of-way (ROW ≥ 130'). Required datasets for calculating this metric include San José Streets, San José Sidewalks, San José Bike Network, GTFS Networks (BART, Caltrain, VTA), and the US Census.

Last updated

May 2026