CD+A was selected by the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), to develop a set of pedestrian technical guidelines for Santa Clara County. The guidelines complement VTA’s Manual of Best Practices for Integrating Transportation and Land Use that addresses the multi-faceted relationship between transportation and land use. The VTA Pedestrian Technical Guidelines provide guidance and build the capabilities of local governments, citizen groups, and the real estate development industry to address pedestrian concerns in the design of streets, sidewalks, buildings, and urban spaces.

The document builds on CD+A experience in providing guidelines for the promotion of walking as a transportation mode. CD+A’s initial project in the area of pedestrian-specific guidelines was the development of Pedestrian-oriented Design (PeD) Guidelines for the Phoenix Region in Arizona. The PeD Guidelines support the creation of pedestrian oriented environments within existing and newly developing districts and corridors with the goal of creating a pattern of development that will support future transit investment. Following the completion of the Phoenix PeD Guidelines, CD+A prepared a set of PeD Guidelines for SANDAG, the MPO in the San Diego California Region. These guidelines expand and provide more detail in the areas of street design, both within the curbs of the street and the "pedestrian realm" outside of the curbs and including the transition into adjacent private development. The SANDAG guidelines, which just won the National Award for Technical Merit in Metropolitan Transportation Planning from the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO), are intended to be used for multiple purposes and a wide range of users. Local pedestrian coordinators, planners, and traffic engineers can customize and integrate the guidelines with local level pedestrian plans, policies, ordinances, regulations and street design guidelines. The City of San Diego used the guidelines to develop standards for the pedestrian realm of the city’s new street design standards.

The VTA guidelines are developed to address four guiding concepts: give pedestrian more, comfortable, and interesting walking space; protect pedestrian from traffic; create great outdoor spaces; and shorten walking distances. Within these concepts, the guidelines focus attention in five major categories: the integration of the "pedestrian realm" into a truly multi-use right-of-way; design of effective and safe intersections and street crossings; detail design of the pedestrian realm both within, and separate from, the roadway network; pedestrian access to transit facilities; and site and building design including parking lot and open space design. The VTA guidelines particularly expand on the issues related to the integration of transit (light rail, BRT, and standard bus service) into a seamless pedestrian supportive environment. The guidelines are also compliant with the on-going update of ADA regulations.

The VTA guidelines were developed through an intensive process of work with an advisory committee including: elected-officials, city transportation staff, and pedestrian advocates from the region. In addition, VTA technical design staff from the Transit Division were involved in developing the guidelines for improved pedestrian access to transit.