Strong Towns approach to public investment

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This is a follow-on to my post don’t forget the little things. Though my post doesn’t have the same message, it goes back to the idea presented by Strong Towns, that big projects are not the secret to improving communities, but small steps, refined and repeated. This applies just as much to transportation as anything else.

Strong Towns has informed my thinking about transportation in ways that I’m not always aware of and acknowledging, so here is a start. If you care about the livability of your community, and the financial stability of your city/county/state, I cannot more highly recommend the organization.

The Strong Towns Approach to Public Investment

ECOS presentation on sales tax measure

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Tonight (March 10, 2022), the ECOS Climate Change Committee received a presentation on the potential transportation sales tax measure (which I’m calling Measure 2022, until it receives an official name). The presentation was given by Roger Dickinson, who was a member of the state Assembly and the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. It was very well presented, concise and on topic. My summary will not cover all the points of the presentation and following discussion, but I think will interest people who are starting to follow the potential measure.

Roger said the measure is very much like the 2020 measure which was not placed on the ballot: 1) fix-it-first; 2) solving congestion; and 3) transportation alternatives. But there are some poison pills included in this measure that were not in the 2020 measure, specifically the Capital Southeast Connector and related issues.

The language included in the 2020 measure to make sure the Capital Southeast Connector complied with air quality requirements of the SACOG MTP/SCS (Sacramento Area Council of Governments Metropolitan Transportation Plan / Sustainable Communities Strategy) was removed. This language was specifically worked out by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg as a compromise to ensure the city’s support for the measure. The removal is likely to ensure opposition from Steinberg and others in the city. The potential measure essentially makes the Capitol Southeast Connector JPA the judge of whether the project meets air quality requirements – the fox guarding the henhouse. More on this in an upcoming posts.

If the Connector causes the region to not achieve the legally required 19% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the region will be non-compliant and likely not eligible for federal transportation grants.

Discussion that followed Roger’s presentation largely revolved around two issues: 1) is it possible to stop this measure, before or after it makes the ballot, and what would that take?; and 2) should the measure be opposed even though it is likely the only significant source of match funding for SacRT grant applications to advance capital projects including light rail modernization, light rail extension, and BRT (bus rapid transit) corridors?

No answers yet, but this will likely be a major topic of conversation within and among all the transportation advocacy and equity organizations in the county, for many months to come.

Scooters filling bike racks

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Here is another antique post that was not posted, but more recent, from 2021. As an update, this is slightly less of a problem today than it was. The city has enforced the requirement that only permit holder Lime (bikes and scooters) can deploy to the racks that were installed by JUMP for the JUMP Bike program. The photo below shows one of those racks. There are also many more scooter and bike parking areas (outlined in white, with symbols, but without racks). With this, I’ve cleaned out my drafts folder.

Rentable scooters, called shared rideables by the city, are thick as flies in Sacramento central city. They are being deployed to bike rack areas, completely filling the racks and leaving no space for bikes. The photo shows a rack with each space occupied by a scooter, no spaces available. It also illustrates a JUMP rack at which other companies are deploying their scooters. These JUMP racks, and the trapezoidal racks, were purchased for the original SoBi and later JUMP systems, and so ‘belong’ to the JUMP/Lime system.

Individuals are free to part their own bike or scooter, or any bike scooter they rent, at these racks, but the other companies are prohibited from deploying to them.

And there are simply too many scooters in some areas, particularly Old Sacramento and R Street. Lime, Bird, Spin, and Razor, are deploying more scooters to high demand areas than can possibly be rented in a day. I assume that they are trying to drive each other out of business so they can dominate and raise prices, which is the business model for all app-based companies. In some ways, a fallout would be good, but in the meanwhile, the huge number of scooters is occupying public space, the sidewalks, and reducing livability.

Measure 2022: ouch!

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A friend pointed out the statements of support for the transportation sales tax measure which are scrolling on the A Committee for a Better Sacramento home page. These are all local politicians, and mostly well respected.

I’m disappointed. They seem to have bought into two falsehoods: 1) congestion can be solved by adding roadway capacity, and 2) congestion is a significant contributor to air pollution. I wonder if they actually read the measure with a skeptical eye before signing on. There are enough things wrong with the measure to fill up many blog posts. I hope to be able to convince these people to become neutral on the measure.

Funding generated by this initiative will enable us to complete the Capitol Southeast Connector project that will connect Interstate 5 to Highways 99 and 50 and link the Cities of Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova and Folsom to relieve congestion, improve safety and drive future economic growth.

David Sander, Chair, Capitol Southeast Connector Joint Powers Authority (also member of the Rancho Cordova City Council)

This initiative will provide a blueprint for transforming our transportation system in the decades ahead and enable us to leverage billions in state funding to help us achieve our aggressive goals.

Bobbie Singh-Allen, Chair, Sacramento Transportation Authority (also Mayor of Elk Grove)

Improving the County’s transportation system will create significant progress towards improving our air quality and addressing climate change. Less congestion will reduce transportation emissions and increased ridership on public transit will add to the positive impact to our air quality. Additionally, the measure invests tens of millions into essential air quality measures.

Eric Guerra, Sacramento Air Quality Management District (also member of the Sacramento City Council)

This initiative will create major benefits to our light rail and bus system. Having additional local funding will help secure millions in federal and state funding to expand the system, modernize our fleet, reduce greenhouse gases and improve congestion on our roadways.

Steve Miller, SacRT Board Chair (also member of the Citrus Heights City Council)

Search for category Measure 2022 to see posts as they are added.

Measure 2022: no public engagement

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A group calling themselves A Committee for a Better Sacramento is sponsoring a citizen-initiated ballot measure for the November election, titled “Sacramento County Transportation Maintenance, Safety, and Congestion Relief Act of 2022—Retail Transactions and Use Tax”. (Note: Some people are referring to this as Measure A, but measure letters are assigned by county elections, not by the sponsors. I’ll continue to refer to it as Measure 2022, for now.)

It has been relayed from others that the committee did not feel that it needed to do any public engagement before developing the text of the measure. The rationale is that since the Transportation Expenditure Plan (TEP) is very similar to that proposed in 2020, and before that in 2016, that is all the public engagement necessary. The TEP was indeed approved by the county and city councils, but there was no real public engagement on the issues. Transportation engineers and planners developed a wish list, and the government bodies adopted it without analysis. Except in the City of Sacramento, where the council challenged the plan developed by Public Works, and demanded a plan that better addressed the needs of the citizens and critical issues such as climate change and equity. None of the other entities did this. So the overall TEP is essentially a list of pet projects of the engineers and planners, developed without any real criteria and without reference to the desires of the community. Some board and council members will claim that they know what the public wants, and their approval is all that is necessary. But the fact is, they never asked the public what they thought.

So, the committee is running with that. No public engagement. This is a citizen-led measure, but the committee decided they didn’t need to hear from anyone else. No meetings, no outreach, no nothing.

We do not know who the committee is, and won’t know who it is until they file the measure with county elections, due July 18. I guessing since they have posted the measure and their sponsors on their website, not listing committee members is likely an effort to hide that information from the public. They will be gathering signatures between now and when they submit. I ask that you not sign their petition. To bring up the old adage: “No taxation without representation.” Therefore, no public engagement, no measure, no taxes.

Search for category Measure 2022 to see posts as they are added.

Measure 2022: greenfield developer sponsors

Dan Allison2 Comments

A group calling themselves A Committee for a Better Sacramento is sponsoring a citizen-initiated ballot measure for the November election, titled “Sacramento County Transportation Maintenance, Safety, and Congestion Relief Act of 2022—Retail Transactions and Use Tax”. (Note: Some people are referring to this as Measure A, but measure letters are assigned by county elections, not by the sponsors. I’ll continue to refer to it as Measure 2022, for now.)

The sponsor of the measure is Cordova Hills Development Corporation. So far as can be determined, the entity does not have a website, though there are references to the development on the website of some of the contractors who have been hired to plan the development. There is apparently an interlocking series of shell companies related to Cordova Hills, but none have websites.

So, what is Cordova Hills? It is a greenfield development proposed for former farm and ranch lands south of Rancho Cordova. Greenfield development is not needed in the Sacramento region; there is plenty of land available for infill development that can serve all the same needs as Cordova Hills. So, why does this company, and many others like it, want greenfield development? Because they can purchase land at agricultural prices, develop it, and then sell it at urban prices, with a huge profit potential. I am not against development, but it is important to remember that there are two types of development and developers: infill and greenfield. Infill is socially and environmentally sound, greenfield is not. Infill builds wealth in the community, greenfield destroys wealth because the development never ends up generating enough tax income for the infrastructure and particularly infrastructure maintenance it incurs.

What Cordova Hills is asking is that the taxpayers of Sacramento County subsidize their development by providing transportation infrastructure. There is less and less support for sprawl greenfield development in the county, so the sponsors are wrapping the subsidy in a measure with other benefits. The developers do not have a good record with the public. During the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors hearing which approved the project, the developer lied about several aspects of the development, and intimidated the supervisors with implied threats to run candidates against them. It was only a last minute agreement between SACOG and the supervisors with language that that the development would not break the MTP/SCS that allowed the development to pass.

The biggest benefit claimed by the developers was a university that was to be part of the project. The proposed university withdrew, and it has never to date been replaced with another, but since the development was approved with a university implied but not required, the developer intends to move forward without.

More about Cordova Hills:

Of course this greenfield development is tied at the hip to the Southeast Connector. More about that in coming posts.

Search for category Measure 2022 to see posts as they are added.

Measure 2022: words have meaning

Dan Allison1 Comment


A group calling themselves A Committee for a Better Sacramento is sponsoring a citizen-initiated ballot measure for the November election, titled “Sacramento County Transportation Maintenance, Safety, and Congestion Relief Act of 2022—Retail Transactions and Use Tax”. (Note: Some people are referring to this as Measure A, but measure letters are assigned by county elections, not by the sponsors. I’ll continue to refer to it as Measure 2022, for now.)

As your parents no doubt told you, words have meaning. So what are the words used in the proposed measure?

  • congestion (in the context of congestion relief) = 24 occurrences
  • greenhouse gas = 6
  • climate = 3
  • low-income = 3
  • community engagement (only in Exhibit B ITOC) = 1
  • equity = 0

A major purpose of this measure is to fund capacity expansion, in an effort to provide congestion relief. But it is well documented and uncontroversial (except among greenfield developers and engineers whose jobs depend on expansion) that attempts to relieve congestion through expansion actually induce new traffic that fills every bit of added capacity. The sponsors of this measure do not believe that. They refuse to believe that. This is a 1970s version of transportation investment, that time when the only issue was building infrastructure that would allow cars to go further and faster. Walking, bicycling, and transit was either an afterthought, or actively discriminated against. We don’t live in those times any more, but the sponsors still do.

Search for category Measure 2022 to see posts as they are added.

SacCity low income high minority

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As promised, a different map of the City of Sacramento showing low income high minority (LIHM) areas, below and in pdf. The light green = low income high minority, is probably the most significant category. There are similarities to the median household income map posted earlier, but they are not identical. It is not that either is right or wrong, just different measures.

This dataset is the Environmental Justice or LIHM developed by SACOG in 2020, for use in their MTP/SCS development process and other uses. This dataset used block groups, the smallest of the census areas, rather than census tracts, which is why the areas on this map do not necessarily match the census tract boundaries on the MHI map. The summary description is:

Environmental Justice areas as of 2020. Created with various factors related to environmental impact of the Sacramento region.

SACOG, with the assistance of the SACOG Equity Working Group, identified 2020 EJ areas as census block group level concentrations of low income, and/or high minority and/or qualification of an “other vulnerability” and/or within the CalEnviroScreen 3.0 identified areas. The other vulnerabilities take into consideration concentrations of: older adults aged 75 or more, linguistically isolated households, single parent households with children under the age of 18, low educational attainment, severely housing cost burdened households, and persons with disabilities.

This is consistent with SACOG’s 2020 MTP/SCS adopted plan. This feature has identified 548 boundaries as Environmental Justice areas for the SACOG region as of August 2021.

thoughts on Sac TPP

Dan Allison1 Comment

Some further thoughts to update my Sac Transportation Priorities Plan update.

I don’t think the five categories should be weighted equally. If the city were starting with a blank slate, it would make sense, but the slate is not blank. Out existing transportation system is profoundly racist and classist, so the city must overcome past harms by focusing improvements on low income and communities of color. Rather than being 20% of the scoring, ‘Provide Equitable Investment’ should be 40%.

I’ve also come to understand this this is a technical document, not a policy document. The only real policy here is that criteria will be used to select projects, not whim. This is acknowledged to be an immense improvement. But it is only one of many needed policies.

What is a policy? A statement that controls how the city designs and operates the transportation network. An existing policy is the goal that all streets will have a pavement condition index (PCI) or at least 72. Examples of new policies:

  • All sidewalks will be maintained in a state of good repair by the city. Adjacent property owners will be responsible only when a tree on private property, not in the sidewalk buffer, creates root heaves, or when construction activity damages the sidewalk.
  • Every crash resulting in a fatality or severe injury will be investigated by a team including a traffic engineer, a planner, a representative of a walking or bicycling advocacy organization (Civic Thread and/or SABA), and a citizen who lives in the neighborhood and regularly walks and/or bicycles. A recommendation for changes will be made, and at least one recommendation implemented. ‘No change’ will not be acceptable.

What is a project? In the city’s understanding, a project is something big, a project that requires a federal, state or SACOG grant, a project that will involve concrete and/or asphalt, and constructors to install it. What is not seen as a project is lower cost changes, many of which could be accomplished with staff time and small expenditures. Examples of lower cost projects:

  • Change every pedestrian signal in the city to have at least a 3 second leading pedestrian interval (LPI) in which the walker gets a head start into the crosswalk. Staff time costs, no materials costs.
  • Remove pedestrian beg buttons from all signals in the city. Leave buttons which trigger ADA audible signals, but label them with that function. Staff time costs, some materials costs (for the new signs).
  • Install temporary curb extensions at the top five fatality or severe injury intersections, every year. Observe usage and transit to refine the design for permanent curb extensions some staff time, some materials costs (paint and posts).

A lot more could be said about each of these policies and projects, and I will, but for now the caution is that the TPP will only be effective if additional policies are implemented, and projects broadly defined to include the small, lower cost stuff, not just big projects.

Transportation tax coming?

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A group calling themselves A Committee for a Better Sacramento is sponsoring a citizen-initiated ballot measure for the November election, titled “Sacramento County Transportation Maintenance, Safety, and Congestion Relief Act of 2022—Retail Transactions and Use Tax”.

Citizen-initiated measures require only 50%+1 to pass, whereas government-initiated measures require 2/3 to pass. So this is an effort to pass the Sacramento Transportation Authority ‘Measure B’ which failed in 2016 and the ‘Measure A+’ which was never put on the ballot in 2020 because research indicated it would also fail.

You can see the proposed measure. It may also be useful to look at just Exhibit A: Expenditure Plan.

This is the first in what will be a series of posts on the measure, which I’m giving the category of Measure 2022. Search for category Measure 2022 to see the posts as they are added.