City Council and Authorities Concurrent on 2025-11-18 5:30 PM - Nov 18, 2025

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Santa Clara City Council 5h 12m 3 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 5 days ago official recording ↗

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What is the opening agenda and who confirms the quorum?

Lisa Gilmore 14:16

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Um May I have a confirmation of a quorum, Assistant City Clerk?

14:25

Thank you, Madam

Unknown 14:26

Mayor. Yes, confirming quorum.

Lisa Gilmore 14:28

Very good. We have two items on closed session. I mean open session for study session and Well, I know we're we're uh we have a time crunch today before the seven o'clock meeting. So our first item is a study session and update on the city's vision zero plan. City manager.

Jovan Grogan 14:45

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Our first item tonight is an update on the city's Vision Zero effort. Vision Zero is a strategy aimed at eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while also promoting safe and healthy mobility for everyone. Since July of last year, the Public Works Department has made significant progress toward creating a Vision Zero plan for the city. With grant funding, it's It's important to note that the city hired Kimley Horn and Associates and completed significant community outreach, a citywide traffic analysis, as well as a draft study. Tonight, Nicole He, a senior engineer with the Public Works Department and the project manager for Vision Zero, will present on this very important topic, and it is her first presentation uh to you as a city council.

Lisa Gilmore 15:34

Thank you. Welcome. Is that on?

Nicole He 15:41

Is that on? Thank you, City Manager, for the introduction. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Nicole He, Senior Engineer at the Public Works Department. Very happy to be here tonight and walk you through our most recent Vision Zero plan. In the room with me tonight, uh we have a few other public works staff. Um, our director, Craig Mobeck, Assistant Director Mike Clue. uh translation manager Steve Chan and senior civil engineer Ralph Garcia and our project consultant Robert Purderna from Kimmy Horn and Mike Cody joining online. A quick agenda for my presentation. I'll start off with some background on Vision Zero, project history, and uh and then go through the project timeline and the significance of this project.

Nicole He 16:32

Um I'll spend most of my time on walking you through the key elements of this Vision Zero plan and wrap up with the next steps and implementation. Uh a picture shown here is our project sign on Vision Zero. I hope you have seen that. On our streets with our slogan share the road. So what is Vision Zero? As mentioned by our city manager, it's a strategy, a really ambitious strategy to end all traffic fatalities and severe injuries in Santa Clara. Um it's not just a slogan, uh, but we just bring together the communities and various stakeholders like police, fire, public works, um, and and all the other uh departments together to work on this plan. And why vision zero? First and foremost, I would say that traffic fatalities are not acceptable.

Nicole He 17:22

Even one traffic death on our streets is one too many. It's also a policy goal from our city's bicycle and pedestrian plans. As I will show you more in our data analysis, we did see an increasing trend, slightly increasing upward of pedestrian and cyclist injuries. very critical to address traffic safety now. And also as a growing city with more people living in Santa Clara, I think we want to take a more proactive approach. uh to improve traffic safety instead of waiting um for the next collision to happen. Here's an overview of our project timeline. As mentioned, it started last year. And over the past 12 months, we have done a lot. We completed an in-depth collision data analysis. We've done many outreach activities and also developed the recommendation of projects, programs, and policy updates.

Nicole He 18:18

And in September this year, we released the public draft Vision Zero Plan. And at the very latest October BPAC, City BPAC Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee meeting, the draft plan was approved and recommended to City Council for adoption. And our goal here is to bring it back to you for city council's final adoption in spring twenty twenty six. And why is this plan important for Santa Clara? Um, first it's our official commitment to citywide transportation safety. Um and as we're doing this project, uh it really is a plan that's shaped by the community.