San Jose broke its record for traffic fatalities in 2022. Why?
Speed plays leading role in crashes resulting in death; the unhoused population particularly vulnerable
SAN JOSE >> On a cool evening in mid-December, Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish was packed with community members, including some of the highest-ranking officials in the city, to remember Maria Marcelo.
Marcelo was a transformative leader in San Jose, who started the Latina empowerment group MadreA-Madre in 2004 and cofounded the Healing Grove Health Center two years ago. Her final act in life was on the evening of Dec. 7, when she led a prayer walk on Little Orchard Street near Perrymont Avenue.
She was crossing the street when a driver hit her, causing fatal injuries. The tragedy made Marcelo the 61st person killed in a traffic collision in the city, setting a modern one-year record for San Jose. As of Dec. 29, the total is 64 roadway deaths, making these collisions the city's most visible public safety issue in 2022 and touching off a wideranging conversation about what can be done to save more lives.
“She was only 47 years old. It's a hit to the community,” said Maria Arias Evans, a cofounder of Madre-A-Madre. “My hope is that she planted leadership in other people. It's going to take a hundred people to replace the work and effort. She truly was unbelievable.”
At the site where Marcelo was hit, a sign remains affixed to a street post: “We Need a Crosswalk … RIP Maria.”
Speed continues to be the number-one factor in the lethality of collisions, and experts say that has gotten worse because of the lingering impact of the pandemic.
“In mid-2021 when the economy reopened, there was an upswing in traffic fatalities,” said Jesse MintzRoth, program manager for Vision Zero San Jose, a city task force charged with combatting roadway deaths. “Speeding is quite easy, and in the past, you would have had other cars to keep your speed. Now you don't really have that.”
The intersection with homelessness
Thirty-one of the 64 fatalities are pedestrian deaths, also an all-time high for a single year. But while Marcelo and other traffic victims, like Jacob Villanueva — an 8-year-old boy who died after being hit by a driver while walking to school Sept. 16 — have brought wide attention to roadway safety, interviews with city transportation officials and safety advocates paint a more complicated picture of the circumstances and causes of traffic deaths in the country's 10th largest city.
At least 17 of San Jose's pedestrian deaths in 2022 were of people known to be unhoused, according to an estimate by the Unhoused Response Group, though the exact count is elusive. And the city's official tally does not include the 12 pedestrians who died on South Bay freeways, nine of whom were from San Jose, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Shaunn Cartwright, a cofounder of the Unhoused Response Group, says city efforts to sweep and break down encampments close to residential areas have pushed unhoused people to set up closer to highways, busy streets and expressways.
“They are forcing people out of areas that are safer,” Cartwright said. “When people were more in neighborhoods, people drive differently when they're in neighborhoods. The more you push people toward dangerous intersections, the more people are going to get hit.”
She added that some people have to stay on the move at night “for recycling, to stay warm and to stay safe,” further increasing their risk.
“Oftentimes you have people under the influence and not necessarily being aware of what's going on around them,” said Sgt. Justin Palmer, supervisor of the San Jose Police Department's traffic investigations unit. “Many have mental illness which has played a part in some of our homelessness and pedestrian victims.”
The city's roadway death total for 2022 far surpasses its homicide total of 35, which is above the 2021 tally of 31 but below the 2020 count of 42, according to SJPD figures.
Police records also show violent crime rose 3.3% through the end of November, which is the latest date for which complete figures were available. That was driven largely by a 21% increase in reported rapes; robbery and aggravated assault remained at about the same level as they did in 2021. Reported burglaries were up about 3% in 2022 from the previous year, and auto thefts were virtually the same in that time frame. Larceny jumped 27% from 2021 to 2022 but was still below the rate recorded in 2019 before the pandemic.
The design of it all
San Jose continues to grapple with how expressways and major thoroughfares designed to bring suburban residents toward the city's downtown core and economic centers have also brought highway speeds onto surface streets.
The city, said Colin Heyne, a spokesman for the San Jose Department of Transportation, was built out for cars, “and we're trying to redesign streets so they're safer and more pleasant to walk on.”
Efforts include the road diets that people can see in Willow Glen and the socalled “quick build” projects downtown that separate bicycle traffic from vehicles and create buffers for pedestrians. But those projects take time, and in the case of expressway improvements, require navigating a patchwork of city and county jurisdiction.
Heyne is quick to note that San Jose still has modest traffic fatality numbers compared to similar-sized cities, and even some smaller cities, like Austin and Jacksonville, have more than double the traffic deaths. But he recognizes the gravity of the worsening situation in San Jose.
“We see that these are record numbers. It's a stain on the city,” he said. “We're committed to continuing on this path to install safety measures and hunting for this funding as well, and applying for everything we can apply for.”
Shiloh Ballard, outgoing executive director of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, lauded the city's broader efforts but said the review processes for even quick-build projects have to be streamlined further, and that the costs should be seen as inducing city savings by cutting down the resources devoted to responding to traffic collisions.
“We're not implementing these projects to keep up with the pace of the death and destruction in our streets,” Ballard said. “If you spend a little money to restripe your road here, you're going to save money.”
Traffic enforcement, and the number of police officers devoted to the task, continue to be at a nadir in San Jose. Palmer noted that SJPD has just over a dozen dedicated traffic enforcement officers, compared to about five times that in the late 2000s. As traffic death numbers rose earlier in the year, city officials pledged to hire more motor cops, but so far the most tangible response has been to install license-plate reading cameras at the city's most dangerous intersections, including near where Marcelo was hit.
What happens in the meantime?
While those issues are being sorted out, Palmer said drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists have to navigate the city's roads without a presumption that anyone is going to stop for them.
“Rely on yourself to keep yourself safe,” Palmer said. “You can't count on everybody to follow and obey the traffic laws.”
He noted that for pedestrians, it is important to be visible and stay near well-lit areas when crossing streets. Heyne said his department is currently distributing free flashlights, and Cartwright said her group is handing out headlamps with an eye on keeping her constituents safe at night.
Brett Bymaster, executive director of the Healing Grove Health Center, said the organization Marcelo helped create had barely begun grappling with her death when it got jarring reminders of how big the problem is. On Dec. 13, a fatal traffic collision happened in front of the center; three days earlier, a car plowed into the boardroom of the facility.
“The car drove through our building at 9 a.m.,” Bymaster said. “At 10 a.m., there would've been 15 kids in that room. We would've lost at least five kids if that had happened an hour later.”
Staff writer Austin Turner contributed to this report.