Recent County policy and a Master Plan of the County, the Comprehensive County Expressway Planning Study Implementation Plan, County of Santa Clara -- simply called the Expressway Master Plan by most people and County supervisors -- was approved by the County Board of Supervisors on August 19, 2003 after a two-year public hearing process. The Expressway Master Plan is cited by VTP 2030 [page 92], the main transportation master plan for the County, thus making it an official Master Plan. (VTP 2030, in turn, is recognized by MTC as the Master Plan.) With regard to pedestrians along expressways, it has these two major changes to County expressway policy:

• The Expressway Master Plan, as official policy, recognizes that all expressways are in fact arterial roads: "The expressway vision statements all classify the expressways as arterials." [page 88]. Previously, the County highway engineers, and some city traffic engineers, claimed that expressways are freeways. Expressways do meet all the AASHTO specifications for 'arterials' category as shown in the VTA policy.
• The Expressway Master Plan recognizes that expressway shoulders and pedestrian paths are safe for occasional pedestrian use: "shoulder or path facilities can serve ... for occasional pedestrian use." [page 93, copied below]. Previously, County highway engineers claimed that shoulders were "unsafe" for both bicycles and pedestrians, and that unpaved pedestrian paths were "unsafe" for pedestrians, for no other reason than it is cheaper to post "bicycles and pedestrians prohibited" signs than to relocate bicycle/pedestrian facilities in future lane addition projects. FHWA policy states that "Paved shoulders have safety and operational advantages for all road users in addition to providing a place for bicyclists and pedestrians to operate."

Official Pedestrian-Expressway Map (main map showing all expressways, from page 90)

This map is page 90 of the Expressway Master Plan (main section). For higher resolution maps, see expressway-specific sections.

A deficiency of the map is that where there are two traits along an expressway (as described in the legend), it would only show one trait on each side of the road, instead of showing two colors of the two traits. For example, where there are existing wide shoulders (grey) AND future planned sidewalks (red), only color red is shown. Another example: Foothill Expressway has shoulders uniformly 8 feet wide (grey), but where there is a parallel road, (blue), it would show only blue, not both grey and blue. The apparent logic, that walkers would use the parallel road, is not entirely valid because many parallel roads have no shoulders or sidewalks, and using the expressway shoulder would be safer than walking in the traffic lane of the parallel road.

Page 93 (excerpt paragraph)

Page 93 (excerpt paragraph with photo, below) of the Expressway Master Plan (main section) has two important quotes:
"shoulder or path facilities can serve ... for occasional pedestrian use." and
"landscaping needs to be kept trimmed back at intersection areas and along the travel way so pedestrians do not have to enter the travel lane.".


To copy the paragraph and photo, drag it onto your desktop.

Bicycle Section

Many of the same features that make the road safe for bicyclists apply also to pedestrians, such as minimum shoulder widths and no acceleration lanes. The separate bicycle section can be downloaded from the County's web site (then click "County Bicycle Guidelines").

How to download expressway-specific sections and detailed pedestrian-expressway maps:

Each expressway also its own section, with a separate pdf file, and includes a pedestrian-expressway map of that expressway. These can be downloaded from the websites of the County or MTS (Modern Tranist Society). To save several clicking steps, MTS has copied to its website four of these documents:
[San Tomas] [Foothill] [Montague] [Lawrence] and two of these maps: [San Tomas] [Foothill].
Note regarding Lawrence map: Many shoulders of Lawrence were widened since 2003, so the map needs updating to show these shoulders as "wide".

To download from the County's website, follow these instructions:

How to download the main section of the Expressway Master Plan:

The main section of the Plan can be downloaded (13 MB pdf file) from either the County's web site (then click "Implementation Plan")
or directly from the MTS website: [click to download 13 MB pdf file]. Note that the main section download does not include the Bicycle section and Expressway-specific sections.

Guide signs (directional signage):

Guide signs are mentioned in various expressway-specific sections. Here is an example quote from the San Tomas section, page 8:
"Recommendations also include improved connections and directional signage to parallel pedestrian facilities, such as trails."
[See examples of Guide signs and details.]

The two-year public hearing process:
How the draft of the Expressway Master Plan changed from imposing more pedestrians prohibitions, to supporting pedestrians.

The VTA/County Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee [VTA BPAC] and MTS had significant input into the Expressway Master Plan.

The original draft of the Expressway Master Plan (then called "Expressway Study") stated that pedestrians would be prohibited unless there is a sidewalk. This meant that pedestrian paths, shoulders and bike lanes would be newly prohibited to walkers, even where they have always been allowed, and with total disregard for their right to use roadways and the law.

The final version, which was endorsed by most cities and approved by the Board of Supervisors, rejected that, as shown above. (The 1991 Board order to create pedestrian paths along expressways was not changed.) While the final Expressway Master Plan did not address all of the topics MTS requested, such as hierarchical street pattern, it does draw the correct conclusions. Here are MTS actions that helped bring this about:

MTS wrote to the VTA BPAC:

• Attack on Pedestrians! Scare tactic, previously used against bicyclists, is now being used against pedestrians and transit patrons by the same highway engineers, in an attempt to take away their right to use the roadways. 
  • Result: BPAC voted that all prohibitory signs be removed.

MTS wrote to the Expressway Study Manager:

• The Safe Pedestrian Plan Guidelines proposed by MTS

• MTS requested changes to the Draft Pedestrian Facility Plan.
• Expressway Study: Rebuttal to the County highway engineers or see the abridged version.

MTS also spoke to the Study's PAB and met with staff.

Also see: Expressway topics, links page.