Tag: ballot measure

Safer Sac Streets

Dan Allison2 Comments

The website for Safer Sac Streets (Sacramento Safe Streets and Affordable Transit Measure of 2026) is now up. The website includes the full text of the measure. It has links to donate, get involved, and endorse.

The measure is a citizen measure, developed by a variety of walking, bicycling and transit advocacy organizations and others, unlike the fake ‘citizen’ measure of 2022 which was a Trojan horse for sprawl developer interests, and failed spectacularly. As a citizen measure, it requires only 50% + 1 to pass. It is also limited to the City of Sacramento, which has been strongly supportive of transportation and transit funding in past measures.

Signature gathering will start as soon as the city clerk signs off and assigns a letter, very soon. The measure will require about 31,000 signatures. Though some funds are available to signature gathering, most will be done by advocates, which is good since they will know more about the measure and local needs and perspectives, unlike the signature gatherers at grocery stores and farmers markets who often know nothing about the measures and propositions they are gathering signatures for.

The campaign kickoff will occur Sunday, March 15 at 1:00 PM, New Helvetia Brewing Company, 1730 Broadway, Sacramento.

Getting Around Sacramento will have more posts about the measure.

55% threshold for transportation maintenance

Dan Allison2 Comments

State Senator Scott Wiener has introduced SCA 6, a constitutional amendment that would change the threshold for transportation measures from 2/3 (67%) to 55%. While I understand the desire to make funding of transportation easier, I am also scared by possible outcomes. The Sacramento County Measure B would have passed under this new threshold, but it failed with 65% when 67% was required. Measure B was chock full of bad projects, including Capital Southeast Connector (a new freeway), widening of Capital City Freeway, new interchanges throughout the county (mostly to serve new and planned greenfield developments), and additional road widening and extension. It also had some good things, such as fix-it-first and light rail car replacement with low-floor/level boarding cars.

I am concerned that if this amendment were adopted, there would just be more and more investment in the same old infrastructure solutions that got us into this mess in the first place, and still less dedicated to what we really need for the time being, which is maintenance.

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