This Friday, San Jose City Council is having a study session on parking standards and “transportation demand management.” The policy changes would overturn longstanding policies that had the outcome of encouraging driving, traffic and pollution. City Council will be voting on the policies this fall.
San Jose has had high parking requirements for years that require more space for parking than for buildings. This creates an environment where it is unfriendly and unsafe to walk, and makes housing more expensive for parking spaces that often go unused.
Instead of requiring parking, the city will require a menu of measures that encourage people to use transit, walk, bike, and telecommute. The specific requirements will be based on the location of the building; in more walkable and transit-friendly places, less driving will be expected. Developers will still be able to provide parking, but will be allowed to provide as much as they believe the building will need.
The presentation is here, The city describes the policy in more detail here, and Greenbelt Alliance has an excellent primer on the benefits here.
The meeting will go from 9am-12pm (agenda), but public comment starts at 11am. You can attend either remotely (zoom link) or in person in the city council chambers. This is a good opportunity to share your thoughts about these policies to change the city’s incentives to encourage less driving and more sustainable transportation.
The underlying intent is reduce parking spaces to allow for more housing which is more people. Where is the water going to come from? Anderson dam is ten years away. Where is the “clean” power coming from? More families is more students, and requires more facilities and teachers. Has the committee considered the many uses of cars besides going to work and grocery shopping? Emergency dashes to an urgent care facility; medical and dental appointments ; church; theater, and out of San Jose visits to other parts of California?
There has to be a way to tie development to transit improvements. Car-free and car-light housing is the future. But VTA transit needs to catch up. They are running fewer buses than in 2001. Right now developers are expected to build parking and pay for road expansions due to traffic impacts. There needs to be a policy to use development to pay to run more buses, not just providing passes to tenants. Everyone can and should be able to live within a short walk to buses than run every 10 minutes all day.