The city of San Jose has a forward-looking goal of reducing single-occupant automobile use to just 40 percent of trips by 2040, which will greatly enhance quality of life for residents and workers. Several recent changes to San Jose’s downtown street environment — most visibly the green and spacious bike lanes — support that goal. Making it easier to get around by bike makes sense, even if you never plan on leaving your car.

Santa Clara County is the fastest growing county in the state, and San Jose is the fastest growing of California’s large cities. In the next 25 years, we can expect our city’s population of residents and workers to grow by almost half a million. Without transportation options, this could be a recipe for traffic gridlock.

As board members of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, with nearly 400 members, we understand the benefits of making San Jose a model city for biking and walking. Increasingly, our employees are looking to live without depending on a car. If we want to attract highly talented workers, we need to take bold steps toward making Silicon Valley more inviting for those who want to commute, shop and dine in a bike- and pedestrian-friendly environment.

We know that investing in bicycle infrastructure pays off: After two years, protected bike lanes on Third and Broadway in Long Beach have resulted in 33 percent more bike trips, while car crashes have dropped by half. The change has encouraged new businesses to open on the corridor. The same has happened in New York, Portland and San Francisco, where two-thirds of merchants along Valencia Street said new bike lanes benefitted their business. These projects all faced initial opposition, but the results show that people like to shop, dine and live where they feel comfortable being on the street without a car.

Finally, as parents, we want our kids to have the same opportunities we had. But over the past 30 years, students have largely stopped walking and biking to school. That’s a discouraging fact. All children should be able to enjoy the fun and freedom of a riding a bike. By building safe, comfortable routes throughout town, we can give our kids a better chance to be active and healthy.

The new bicycle facilities downtown are crucial pieces of the active landscape we need to build in San Jose. Innovative infrastructure is being built throughout Silicon Valley and the Peninsula, and it makes sense for the Bay Area’s biggest city to lead the way. We applaud the vision of the City Council and the hard work of the Department of Transportation as it moves forward with the projects outlined in the Bike Plan 2020 and Envision 2040 general plan.

These changes are good for all of us: Recent projects like the Hedding Street green lanes have been designed to calm traffic and make it more pleasant to be a pedestrian and resident. Change of this scale can be bumpy, and we acknowledge that there is still work to be done. But moving backward, as some have suggested, is no solution.

As we look 10 years down the road, we can see a city teeming with energy and activity, with an economy that thrives on the mobility of its residents and visitors. BART will further connect us to the region, and the Diridon Station area will be a hub of activity, culture, transportation and entertainment. A robust and inviting network of bicycle routes, sidewalks and paths will provide the framework for this future vision. We hope you — our neighbors, friends, family and co-workers — will help us achieve it.

Andy Ball is president of Suffolk Construction’s West Region. Tom Werner is president and CEO of SunPower Corp. They wrote this for this newspaper.