Connect the Plaza de Cesar Chavez

Stairs with text 'Plaza de Cesar E. Chavez' — Stairs at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez. Via the city of San Jose.

Motivation

The Plaza de César Chávez sits in a central location in Downtown San Jose. Today, it sees a small number of visitors most days of the year. While special events drive large numbers of visitors, they occur only infrequently, wasting much of its potential when no such event is ongoing. We would see it become a lively place every day, where people go to congregate in downtown, just because they can. We can get there with gentle changes to the Plaza, turning it into what we’re calling Plaza Sí Se Puede.

Plaza Sí Se Puede

Connect the Plaza

Plaza de Cesar Chavez and Paseo de San Antonio — The Plaza de Cesar Chavez, and the Paseo de San Antonio, highlighted in dark blue. Via Apple Maps.

The most important step in making the Plaza a major downtown destination: we must connect the Plaza to its surroundings including San José Civic and Paseo de San Antonio. We require only minor changes to connect it so: limit car and truck traffic on S Market St on either side of the Plaza.

The street around the Plaza need only allow emergency services vehicles as they respond to calls. These vehicles use attention-grabbing emergency lights and sirens, and the drivers among our first responders know how to safely navigate areas with many people. For the businesses adjoining the Plaza, we can allow local delivery traffic with safety measures: they may enter the Plaza mornings from 5am-12 noon, when fewer people will be present. As for the Signia hotel, the segment of Market St between the hotel and San Fernando St becomes a short, two-way road. All vehicles in and around the Plaza must adhere to the common California speed limit for pedestrian conflict-zones, 15 mph.

These tweaks bring immediate benefits. First, the danger of vehicular collisions drops to near zero. While traffic violence impacts us all, children 15 and under in the US especially face danger from vehicles, underscoring the importance of reducing vehicle collisions for child safety. But cutting down on collisions is not the only benefit of limiting vehicle traffic. Cars and trucks produce the majority of the noise and air pollution attributed to cities. The expanded Plaza will provide relief from these hazards.

Returning to the connectivity aspect of our changes, allowing people onto Market St around the Plaza effectively joins the Plaza with the surrounding areas. The no-longer-islanded Plaza forms a continuous stretch from San Jose Civic to the first segment of the Paseo de San Antonio.It becomes a place where one may visit a museum, see a show, and get dinner, without the stress of speeding drivers in between.

Expanded Plaza de Cesar Chavez and Paseo de San Antonio — Sí Se Puede Plaza in light blue expanded to meet surrounding buildings, and the Paseo de San Antonio, in dark blue. Via Apple Maps.

Accessibility

The expanded and improved Plaza would shine for its accessibility. Motor-vehicle-free areas better serve disabled people than their car-involved counterparts, including because disabled people tend to drive less than others in their cohort. Often, they will instead get around by walking, rolling, or taking transit. Coupled with 36% higher rates of vehicle-pedestrian deaths among wheelchair users as compared to the US as a whole, we find that reducing vehicle traffic makes the Plaza more accessible. Connecting the Plaza delivers outsized benefits for disabled people!

Traffic

Almaden Boulevard is the next road to the west, and offers divided north/south travel lanes and a higher 30mph speed limit, compared to the 25mph limit around the Plaza. There is no Plaza to avoid there, no odd mid-block pedestrian crossings. All-in-all, Almaden Boulevard is a nicer road to drive on than S Market St. It is well suited to carrying the traffic formerly passing through the Plaza.

Parking

Fortunately, many prominent locations offer parking nearby to the Plaza. A surface parking lot to the southeast of the plaza, the Fairmont Plaza Garage to the northeast, the Second & San Carlos St garage, the SP+ garage on 2nd St, and more, all accommodate visitors to the area.

Multiple transit stops sit near to the Plaza, for people who wish to visit but can’t or won’t drive. These include the light rail stations, at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center and 1st and Paseo de San Antonio, as well as nearby bus stops along San Carlos and along 1st St.

Why “Plaza Sí Se Puede”?

As we change the Plaza to become more of a destination in downtown, changing its name at the same time conveys that we’re making more than cosmetic tweaks. A new name helps to change the way people think about the Plaza.

We have reason specifically to move away from Plaza de Cesar Chave, too: in March 2026, the New York Times published a major report on Cesar Chavez’s abuse of girls and women. While Chavez did play important role in the movement that produced the United Farm Workers (UFW), we should choose who and what we honor with care, and his repeated maltreatment of women demands a critical evaluation on our part. The name Plaza Sí Se Puede honors all of the people in that labor movement, well as the causes they championed. The name reflects the Spanish language motto “sí, se puede”, used by that same movement and further carried on into civil rights and immigration justice movements.