American Cities Climate Challenge: San José TDM Policy

Six months after completion of the plan, San José became the largest city in the country to abolish parking requirements, shifting to less car-oriented development.

To help cities scale up their urban solutions to address climate change, Bloomberg Philanthropies created the American Cities Climate Challenge: a two-year acceleration effort supporting cities’ efforts on implementing transportation policies, designs, and codes. As the Climate Challenge’s mobility advisor, Nelson\Nygaard is providing technical support to all 16 cities in the Climate Challenge. The expert advice has covered a range of actions from congestion pricing and transitway design to mobility hub strategy, curb planning, and parking policies.

For the City of San José, Nelson\Nygaard worked with City staff to develop updates to their zoning-code parking requirements and create a new, citywide TDM Plan requirement for new and infill development. The parking requirement updates focused on shifting away from requiring parking towards “flexible” maximums that require additional TDM Plan commitments in exchange for added parking supply for most development proposals. Nelson\Nygaard also worked on assistance tasks for the City, including developing TDM strategies specific to downtown event venues.

To bring forward these concepts to a wider audience, Nelson\Nygaard created a TDM Implementation Guide for other cities interested in developing their own TDM programs and regulations. The guide outlines how TDM can be used to achieve a broad range of community objectives and captures lessons learned from crafting policies and implementation strategies to respond to varying urban contexts. The guide also details the steps for advancing TDM through updates of development codes, traffic impact analysis guidelines, and commuter benefit ordinances.