Tag: Measure A

SACOG pathways

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

SACOG is in the process of developing the 2024 MTP/SCS, now referred to as the Blueprint in acknowledgement of the innovative and leading 2004 Blueprint. As part of the process, they have defined three pathways or scenarios, shown below. Pathway one is the vision of more greenfield development, more roadways and expanded roadways, ineffective transit, and neglect of already developed areas. Pathway three is close to the vision of advocates for an effective and equitable transportation system. Pathway two is basically continuing what we are doing, some good things along with many bad things.

Where does the 2022 Measure A transportation sales tax measure, which will lock in a vision of transportation for 40 years while costing taxpayers $8.5 billion, is as close to pathway one as possible. It is a mistake for land use planning, for transportation, for equity, and for climate. Please vote against Measure A in November.

PATHWAY 1: OUTWARD EXPANSION
This pathway builds on the land use trends over the last two decades and expands the footprint of the region outwards through significant lower density growth in developing communities and rural residential areas. It will provide the most large lot single-family and rural residential housing and the least amount of infill growth. The Outward Expansion pathway will provide more emphasis on adding roadway capacity to meet mobility needs. Due to this pathway’s more dispersed land use pattern, transit services will focus on geographic coverage rather than frequency of service, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities will focus more on connecting developing communities to existing networks.

PATHWAY 2: COMPACT GROWTH AND PHASED EXPANSION
This pathway will use the key land use metrics from the 2020 MTP/SCS to create a land use forecast and will be updated with current conditions. In the 2020 MTP/SCS, roughly 65 percent of new housing and 85 percent of new jobs were in infill areas and roughly 73 percent of new homes were either small lot single-family or attached products. This pathway will maintain the transportation project list from the 2020 MTP/SCS but will include updates based on completed or modified projects in capital improvement programs or planning efforts. New roadways or transportation investments will be included where the growth pattern has shifted. Transit service in this pathway will focus on increasing vehicle service hours for bus and rail projects.

PATHWAY 3: INWARD EXPANSION
This pathway will explore a future in which most of the future growth occurs in infill areas such as centers and corridors and established communities. This pathway is intended to explore the performance implications of a future that significantly departs from today’s land use trends. This pathway provides the most new small lot and attached housing and growth in infill areas would consist of already approved projects, vacant lots, and significant redevelopment of underutilized commercial corridors oriented around the transportation investments. In this pathway investments in capacity projects will only be used to address extreme bottle necks and congestion. To meet the region’s mobility needs, this pathway will focus on transit service in corridors with sufficient density and mix of uses needed to generate sufficient ridership to justify higher frequency transit, and fully connect existing communities through an integrated bike and trail network to reach essential destinations within communities.

How to fund transit in Sac county

Dan Allison2 Comments

This post is a follow-on to three previous posts, in particular:

and many other posts on this blog (category Measure B) and on Sacramento Transit Advocates and Riders (categories Measure B 2016 and Measure A 2020).

It is quite possible that Sacramento Transportation Authority (SacTA) will decide to float a new transportation sales tax measure in 2022 or 2024. The transit, walking and bicycling advocacy community, which worked hard but largely unsuccessfully to improve the 2020 Measure A, which never made it to the ballot, will have to decide what to do between now and then. I argue that efforts to improve the newest measure will not significantly improve it because: 1) the SacTA board is resistant to including policy and performance goals in the measure; 2) the list of projects is and probably will always be a wish list of the engineers in each of the government transportation agencies in the county, which will always be weighted towards cars-first and ribbon cutting projects; and 3) SacTA gave strong lip service to the idea of maintenance (fix-it-first) in the measure, but there was nothing to guarantee that the expenditures would actually reflect that. One has only to look at the condition of our surface streets, sidewalks and bike lanes, and bus stops and light rail vehicles, to know that has never been the priority.

I would like to suggest three major alternatives to a new transportation sales tax measure put forward by SacTRA:

  • a citizen-initiated measure that reflects the values of the residents and businesses of Sacramento County, and not the preferences of engineers
  • a transit-only measure (with first/last mile walking and bicycling improvements), either for the county, or the actual service area of the transit agencies where residents support transit
  • other sources of income rather than a regressive sales tax

Citizen-initiated Measure

A citizen-initiated funding measure only needs to pass by 50%+1, whereas agency-initiated measures need to pass by 2/3. The 2/3 level is hard though not impossible to achieve – several transportation and transit measures in California have achieved that level, but certainly 50% is easier. This 50% is not based on a specific state law, but on a court ruling about San Francisco’s tax measures which passed with more than 50%. It will probably be subject to further court cases as anti-tax organizations try to overturn the ruling, but for now, it stands. The 2016 Measure B had a yes vote of 64%+, but needed 2/3, and therefore failed. The polling done for the 2020 Measure A was also less than 2/3, which is why Sacramento County and SacTA declined to put it on the ballot.

I have no illusions about how difficult it would be to engage the community, write a ballot measure, and then promote it strongly enough to receive a 50% plus vote. The recent experience the community organizations that supported a measure for stronger rent stabilization and eviction protection in the City of Sacramento, that failed to pass, gives pause. The SacMoves coalition spent thousands of hours of individual and organization time, basically writing a good measure for SacTA to use, but very little of that effort was included in the measure proposed by SacTA. A successful citizen-initiated measure would require more than double the amount of work, and a broader coalition. Nevertheless, it is an option that I think should receive serious consideration.

I doubt that the structure of SacTA, which is board members that are elected in each of the jurisdictions, without formal citizen or organization representation on the board, combined with a Transportation Expenditure Plan that is and will alway be a wish list for roadway engineers, can ever lead to a good measure. We could of course wait to see what SacTA comes up with, or again try the largely unsuccessful attempt to improve the measure, or just oppose any measure from SacTA.

Transit-Only Measure

The percentage of 2020 Measure A allocated to transit was actually lower than in the 2016 Measure B, and lower than in the existing Measure A. Some of the difference in 2020 was due to the regional rail allocation being subtracted from the transit allocation, but there was more to it than just that. Sadly, SacRT accepted this reduction as ‘the best they could get’. To citizen advocates, though, it was unacceptable. Since the 2020 measure was not placed on the ballot, it was not necessary for advocates to formally oppose passage of the measure, but I believe most of them would have.

A transit-only measure would avoid this competition between maintenance, roadway capacity expansion, and transit (notice that walking and bicycling are not really in the competition at all), by allocating all funds to transit and related needs. The amount of course would not be the half-cent sales tax of the 2020 Measure A, but more likely a quarter-cent sales tax (or equivalent in other incomes sources, see the next section). Certainly the advocacy community would support first/last mile walking and bicycling improvements in the measure, though I’m not sure exactly how it would be defined or whether the percentage would be specified ahead of time.

A transit-only measure would more easily allow the SacRT to determine how much to allocate to capital (bus and light rail vehicles and rail, and related items such as bus stops and sidewalks) versus operations, and to change that allocation over time as needs changed. The three counties that are members of Caltrain passed 2020 Measure RR for a eighth-cent sales tax to fund operations, with 69% of the vote, and at least 2/3 in each county, precedence in California for transit-only measures.

For a transit-only measure, a decision would have to be made about the geographical area it covers. Sacramento County, only and exactly, or Sacramento County plus the YoloBus service area, or just the transit-using areas. It was clear that the strongest support for 2016 Measure B was in the transit-using parts of Sacramento County, and if these areas were the only ones, it would have passed easily. There has also been a lot of opposition to transit expenditures on the part of the county supervisors who say they represent the rural and semi-rural areas of the county (it is statistically impossible that three of the five supervisors represent rural, given that the population of the county is mostly urban and denser suburban). A lot of advocates then said, well, if they don’t want transit, then let’s exclude voters and their tax income in the future. Of course the projects defined in the measure, mostly capacity expansion, could not be funded off sales tax from only the rural and semi-rural areas, so most of these would never happen. And I think that is a good thing.

Other Sources

The sales tax rate in Sacramento County is 7.75%, and ranges up to 8.75% in the City of Sacramento and some other locations. I am not opposed to sales tax, but I think we are at or close to the point of diminishing returns on sales tax income versus impact on people and businesses. Sales taxes are regressive, in that lower income people pay a much higher percentage of their income for sales tax than do higher income people. It is not the most regressive of taxes, that award probably goes to flat rate parcel taxes where people with a lot of land and expensive buildings pay the same as anyone else. For more detail on possible funding sources, please see my earlier post: transportation funding ideas.

California under Prop 13 has an intentionally biased tax base, where property tax depends more on when you purchased than on the value of the property. I really hoped that 2020 Prop 15 would pass, undoing part of the tremendous damage that Prop 13 has done to California, but it did not. So while small and gradual increases in property tax income can occur, it is probably not enough to finance our transportation system. This saddens me, because I believe property tax would be the best, most equitable source of funding.

If property tax can serve only part of the need, and further sales tax increases are not my preference, what then? First, I think that both federal and state funding of transportation should move away from any and all roadway capacity expansion. Overall federal and state transportation funding should be greatly reduced so that it only funds needs that are more than county or regional level. And yes, federal and state taxes should be commensurately reduced, so that the money does not simply go elsewhere. State prohibitions on the type of taxes and fees that can be levied at the city and county level should be mostly or entirely removed, so that cities and counties can then recover the foregone state and federal taxes for whatever transportation uses they deem.

Local transportation needs would still exist, and should be locally funded. Yes, I want Sacramento County to provide most of the transportation funding for Sacramento County. It is necessary that local people pay for transportation, and see the benefit of what they pay for, so that they can make rational decisions about what they want and how to pay for it. Getting state and federal grants to meet local transportation needs is just a game that agencies play, hoping that they will somehow get more than they give. We know that states with strong economies, such as California, subsidize transportation in other places, and that regions with strong economies such as Los Angeles area, Bay Area, and maybe Sacramento, subsidize transportation in other regions. No reason for that to be happening, unless the need being addressed is regional or greater. If you don’t agree on this, I’d ask that you read Strong Towns Rational Response #1: Stop and Rational Response #1: What it means to STOP. And everything else by Strong Towns, for that matter.

We have spent trillions of dollars on a motor vehicle transportation system, with the biggest accomplishment being destruction of communities of color, impoverished economies and communities, pollution-caused health problems, climate change, and death, injury, and intimidation of walkers and bicyclists. It is time to stop. All future funding should go to maintenance, transit, intercity trains, walking, and bicycling. Those who want to bring ‘balance’ by making a small shift are asking that we continue the madness. We should not.

Examples of projects or maintenance that should come from the state or federal level? The Interstate highways that are actually dedicated to national defense and interstate commerce. In Sacramento region, that means Interstate 5 and Interstate 80. No, not the current freeways that have been bloated to serve local and regional commuters, but the highways. Two lanes in each direction would be sufficient to meet the legitimate needs of these highways. All additional lanes, if any, should be completely funded at the local level because they serve local needs. Long distance and regional rail should also be funded. In the case of Sacramento, that means the Amtrak Coast Starlight and California Zephyr, and the Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins regional rail. That’s pretty much it. There might be some argument for funding freight rail infrastructure and maintenance, not sure. No, I don’t think airports should be funded at the any level, they are a transportation mode that benefits primarily high income travelers and shipping corporations. If they want that infrastructure, they should pay for it.

So, how to fund transportation in the county?

First, charge for parking everywhere, even in residential areas. A residential parking permit should reflect the part cost of maintaining all streets. Quite possibly, people would reduce their use of the public street to store their personal vehicle, and might reduce their ownership of vehicles so that they don’t need to park on the street, and those would be good side effects, but would also limit the income from those permits. When there are fewer vehicles parked, there is less resistance to re-allocating space to sidewalks, sidewalk buffers, and bike lanes. Metered parking should be raised to ‘market rates’ which means what it would cost to park in a private garage or lot, AND achieves the Shoupian ideal of at least one open parking space on every block. Of course all parking revenue should go to transportation, not to other uses (such as paying off the Golden 1 Center). The Pasadena model of using some parking income to improve the street and surrounding areas is compatible.

Second, charge for entry into congested areas. In Sacramento County, that would primarily mean the central city. The purpose of this fee is not to reduce congestion, though the fees are often called congestion fees, but to obtain the income necessary to build and maintain our transportation network. The fee would be for each entry, so that people who live in the central city but don’t use their car much would not be paying a lot, while people who commute into the central city for their own convenience would be paying a lot.

These two sources alone might well not meet the need for transportation funding in the county, and I don’t have a ready solution to that. I don’t want development impact fees to go to transportation because I think they should be used to upgrade utilities and fund affordable housing. Same with title transfer taxes.

So, those are my thoughts of the moment. Comments and other or additional ideas are welcome.

no Measure A in 2020

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The Sacramento Transportation Authority decided today in a special meeting to “Repeal Ordinance No. STA 20-001 And Withdraw Request To The Board of Supervisors To Place The Measure On The November Ballot”. So Measure A is dead for the 2020 election. I celebrate this decision, but not for the reasons that most of the commenters online and by email gave.

A lot of the people opposed to the measure are simply opposed to any taxes, of any sort. The claim was made by a number of commenters that no roads had been fixed in the county. This is simply not true. Several roads have been paved, and a few reconstructed. The reason it looks like not much has been done is that there is so much need, so much deferred maintenance, that available funds can make only a small dent in the backlog. This is a significant point, as there is no amount of money, even if every cent went to fixing roads, to maintain the sprawling road and freeway infrastructure that the county and the cities have created. The economic value of these road investments is too small to maintain them. Economic productivity lies in places where there are a lot of jobs and a lot of small businesses, and that takes at least moderate density. The suburbs and exurbs of Sacramento county can’t provide that economic value, their value is just too low. Most of the commenters are under the illusion that someone guaranteed that their roads would be maintained even if their property taxes and sales taxes and other taxes were not sufficient to cover the cost. This is delusional. A lot of commenters suggested that the politicians are lying to them, and that the money is going somewhere else. Well, what the politicians are doing is not telling the truth that the infrastructure cannot be maintained on any conceivable tax. There are too many miles of roads, running through low density development, that can’t pay its own way. There are too many miles of freeway and expressway, serving to get commuters from their low-tax haven in the suburbs to their high value job in the job centers such as downtown Sacramento, and parts of Rancho Cordova and Folsom.

I know that a number of SacTA board members want to bring the same measure back in two years, when they hope (and I hope) that we are out of the current health and economic crises, and voters are more willing to vote for a transportation sales tax measure. I sincerely hope that is not what happens. I hope that instead people see that sales taxes are a dead-end road, and that the projects proposed were not the ones needed. I’ll have at least two more posts over the next two days about what I would like to see happen.

Against Measure A

Dan Allison2 Comments

The Sacramento Transportation Authority (SacTA) has developed an ordinance and transportation expenditure plan for a new half cent transportation sales tax, intended for the November ballot. All of the cities and the county have supported the measure (some overwhelmingly, some closer), and SacTA has voted to forward the measure to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors for placement on the ballot. There are reluctance to put a tax measure on the ballot when so many other tax increases have happened over the last few years, and in such a time of uncertainty. But it is also being sold by boosters as a jobs creation program. I can’t predict what the supervisors will do. Nonetheless, it is my time to speak out against the measure.

Here is what I believe to be wrong, first as a tax measure:

  • The proposed Measure A is in large part an attempt to bail out the existing Measure A, which is nearly out of money because almost all projects were bonded (a gift to wall street), rather than being pay-as-you-go with a few exceptions for large or very high priority projects. There is no reason to think that financial mis-management won’t continue under the new measure, and there is nothing in the ordinance language to prevent it.
  • Sales taxes are inherently regressive, and we must stop funding government with sales tax. It is time to move to property tax and other taxing mechanisms. Sales tax places the greatest burden on those least able to afford it, as low income people pay a much larger percentage of their income to sales tax than do higher income people. This is not an argument against all sales taxes, but I think we have gone far enough down that road and it is time to STOP.
  • The anti-tax arguments against the measure, however, are a red herring. The anti-tax suburbs and exurbs exist because of subsidies of their infrastructure and transportation system by the rest of the county. For these people to now object to the measure because it doesn’t continue to provide them the high level of subsidy they demand is disingenuous, to say the least.

Second, as a transportation measure:

  • Measure A perpetuates, for 40 years, the cars-first model of transportation, continuing to expand lane miles and interchanges. The fact that there is money for transit and to fix roads does not change the climate-killing expansion agenda of the measure. Transportation expenditures should now be 100% for mitigating the effects of our past misallocation of transportation funds, not reinforcing them. Anyone who is paying any attention knows that the global climate change is going to slam our existing habits and infrastructure, and to me, the idea of continuing down the road of capacity expansion is criminal.
  • No amount of transit expenditure will bring us to a balanced system so long as we continue to fund (subsidize) the competition to transit, personal motor vehicles.
  • Freeways are inherently racist, since they were created and continue to serve to allow suburban and exurban whites to access central city jobs while not have to fund or support central city infrastructure. We have seventy years of catering to the desires of suburban whites, and it is time to shift to supporting those who were disinvested.
  • Though the transportation agencies continue to give lip service to maintenance, or ‘fix-it-first’, no sooner does the tax start then they are trying to undermine maintenance. It has always been this way and will continue until there are absolute and irrevocable commitments to maintenance. Measure A contains no such commitments.
  • Substantial portions of the Measure A TEP are for highway interchanges. These projects exist solely to benefit private development, often the sprawl development of greenfields (agricultural and open space lands). Citizens are forced to subsidize private development, and that development is always large developers and large corporations, never small developers and small businesses.
  • The Capital Southeast Connector is probably the worst transportation project this region has ever seen. Its purpose is to fuel long distance commutes between El Dorado Hills (which is not even in the county) and Elk Grove, and to develop the agricultural land along the alignment. The amount of money going to the project from Measure A has been scaled back a bit, but a stake needs to be driven through the heart of this zombie project, which has been built little by little under the nose of taxpayers, without the required evaluation of the entire project.

And lastly, SacTA ignored most of the input from the SacMoves coalition that could have improved the measure. The input, based on Los Angeles County (Metro)’s successful Measure M and the perspectives of the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change, was developed over a long period of time by a large variety of community advocacy organizations. Of the model proposals, only a small part was adopted. This despite the board members saying that they wanted to see a Measure M-like effort. When push came to shove, the board fell back on reliance on the the highway building lobby and its city and county minions.

What will happen if the sales tax measure does not go on the ballot, or if it does but fails in November? Well, I know SacRT is so concerned about this that they have placed their effort behind the measure. But the failure, either way, actually opens the window for a transit-only ballot measure, maybe with a source of income other than sales tax, and covering the parts of the county (and maybe part of Yolo County) where people actually want a successful transit system. The very recent court ruling that citizen-origination measures only need 50% plus to pass providing an intriguing possibility for a citizen-led effort to support transit.

I realized I’ve said some very radical things there. Comments that help illuminate the issues or give different perspectives on progressive change are welcome. Comments from suburban NIMBYs and people who believe the right to drive was written into the constitution and bible will be deleted, so don’t waste your time.

Though I have been or am a member of the SacMoves coalition, and several organizations which are members of the coalition, I do not speak for any of them. The words are my own.

root heaves on the river parkway

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The photo above is a root heave on the American River Parkway path, west of Watt Avenue. This root heave started developing more than a year ago, and has of course gotten worse. Assuming that this will be a rainy winter, come spring the heaving will accelerate greatly.

The heave has been decorated by users at least twice, in an effort to alert other bicyclists to the hazard. But at night, the heave is invisible. The vertical displacement is about 2.5 inches, enough to make a bicyclist hitting it at speed lose control, or to throw them off their bike. It could result in serious injury or even death.

I have reported this issue to Sacramento Regional Parks via email, via phone calls, via Twitter, and directly to park rangers. Nothing has been done. More than a year, and it has only gotten worse.

This is just the worst heave, so far as I know, for the sections I ride. There are many more with less displacement. All have been marked by users in some way, indicating that users care much more about their safety than does Sacramento Regional Parks.

I will therefore suggest that Sac Regional Parks is incapable of maintaining this key part of the transportation network. Though they do from time to tine repave portions of the parkway, they have done nothing significant in the last three years. Measure A allocates $1 million of transportation funds per year to the parkway, but it has never been clear how these funds are being spent and many in the bicycle community question whether it is ending up ‘on the ground’ in path maintenance, or going elsewhere.

The responsibility for the parkway path needs to be transferred to the county department of transportation (SacDOT). It is not because they are a great agency, either, and anyone who drives or rides the streets in the county know how far behind the county is falling in maintaining their roads. The nevertheless, the parkway path is part of the transportation system, and needs to be considered as part of the system.

transportation funding sources and uses

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Transportation in Sacramento County comes from a number of sources: federal, state, regional and local. The federal government is the big player in our national and regional transportation system, but has little role in local streets and roads. The state has a large role in national and regional transportation, partly with it own money and partly as a conduit for federal money. The regional Metropolitan Planning Agency, Sacramento Area Council of Governments in our case, does not contribute any funds, but does have a say in how a portion of the federal and state funds are allocated. Sacramento County has a role in the transportation system at all levels, national, regional, and local, and contributes through the Measure A sales tax. Some cities within the county contribute to projects, and much of what little maintenance is done is funding by the cities.

Some readers are saying whoa! There is a lot more detail to the story than this. Yes, there is. What I am doing at the moment is painting with a broad brush for common citizens who might have input on the proposed Measure B sales tax for transportation.

So, where does it go?

  • Federal funds reserve 10% for transit, and almost all the rest goes to highway construction projects. Though the federal government has said it wants to see a more multi-modal transportation system, they are giving money to the states with almost no strings attached and the states are spending it on highway construction. A recent effort to hold states more accountable is toothless.
  • State funds from Proposition 1B and other sources go to construction, transit, a little maintenance, and tiny amounts to the Active Transportation Program. 75% of the money is passed through to the MPOs and regional transportation agencies, but in such a way that most of the decisions are at the regional level are for the same, mostly construction and some other. Again, the state has said it wants to see a more multi-modal system, but funding decisions still strongly favor highways.
  • Regional funds are allocated largely based on requests from the counties and cities for projects, and most of the projects requested are highway construction and arterial expansion. Again, the MPOs have said they want a more multi-modal system, but the funds continue to go largely to cars.
  • County funds are primarily from the transportation sales tax Measure A. Most of these funds were allocated to new construction, with 1/3 for transit and almost none to maintenance and walking and bicycling. The nature of the sales tax measure, approved in 1988 and updated in 2004, is a 30-year term and a list of projects that can only be significantly changed by a new ballot measure.

Here are some links on transportation funding in California:

  • Transportation Funding, Institute for Local Government, undated but may be somewhat out of date
  • Transportation Funding in California, Caltrans, 2014
  • If you search for “transportation funding California” you will find a lot more information. Please realize that some of these web sites and documents are from road building industry groups, so put just as skeptical an eye on those as you do my posts!

SacramentoGO completed projects

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Looking at the projects completed, and highlighted, on the new SacramentoGO website gives a pretty clear indication of the sort of things that would be completed in the future with a new sales tax measure. I’ve made notes, in italic, on each of the items.

Folsom

A. New Folsom Lake Bridge – motor vehicle
B. New Lake Natoma Bridge – motor vehicle
C. Three New Light Rail Stations – transit
D. Light Rail Extended to Folsom – transit
E. Carpool Lanes Added on Hwy 50 – motor vehicle

Highway 50 Communities / Rancho Cordova

A. New Interchange Watt Ave & Hwy 50 – motor vehicle with some active transportation benefit
B. New Light Rail Overhead Crossing – motor vehicle
C. Hwy 50 Bus & Carpool Lanes – motor vehicle
D. Light Rail Extended to Folsom – transit, though again, a parking garage at Old Folsom and large parking lots at another station were part of the expense

Arden-Arcade / Carmichael

A. Howe Ave Widened – motor vehicle
B. Watt Ave Bridge Widened + Bicyclist and Pedestrian Paths – motor vehicle with some active transportation benefit
C. New Interchange Watt Ave & Hwy 50 – motor vehicle
D. Bus and Carpool Lanes Hwy 50 – motor vehicle

Fair Oaks / Orangevale

A. Hazel Ave Widened – motor vehicle
B. Sunrise Blvd and Bridge Widened – motor vehicle
C. Hazel Ave Widened + Road Improvements (in progress) – motor vehicle
D. Carpool & Bus Lanes Added Hwy 50 – motor vehicle

Citrus Heights

A. New Carpool Lanes on I-80 – motor vehicle
B. Safe Routes to School Improvements Mariposa Ave – active transportation
C. Greenback Lane Widened – motor vehicle
D. Antelope Rd – motor vehicle
E. Auburn Blvd – motor vehicle
F. Sunrise Blvd (parts in progress) – motor vehicle

North Sacramento

A. Interchange Upgrade Elverta Rd & Hwy 99 – motor vehicle
B. I-80 Carpool Lanes – motor vehicle
C. Interchange Upgrade Elkhorn Blvd & I-80 – motor vehicle
D. Interchange Upgrade Madison Ave & I-80 – motor vehicle

City of Sacramento

A. Ramp/Connector Improvements – motor vehicle
B. I-80 Bus & Carpool Lane – motor vehicle
C. Arden-Garden Hwy Connector – motor vehicle
D. Arden Way Improvements – motor vehicle
E. Interchange Upgrade – motor vehicle
F. New Intermodal Station – transit
G. New Light Rail Station – transit? unsure what this is, maybe La Valentina
H. Ramp/Connector Improvements – motor vehicle
I. Ramp/Connector Improvements – motor vehicle
J. Hwy 50 Bus & Carpool Lanes – motor vehicle
K. Folsom Blvd Widening – motor vehicle
L. New Interchange – motor vehicle
M. Cosumnes River Blvd Extended – motor vehicle
N. New CRC Light Rail Station – transit
O. Cosumnes River Blvd Extended – motor vehicle

Elk Grove

A. New Interchange – motor vehicle
B. Light Rail Extended to CRC Station – transit, in part, but a large portion of the expense was the parking garage at CRC and huge parking lots at other stations
C. Interchange Upgrade – motor vehicle
D. Interchange Upgraded – motor vehicle
E. Bike & Pedestrian Bridge – active transportation
F. Interchange Upgraded – motor vehicle

Galt

A. Roundabouts and New Gateway to Galt Reduce traffic congestion and improve bike and pedestrian safety – motor vehicle with some active transportation benefit
B. New A Street Bridge – motor vehicle
C. C Street Bridge Rebuilt – motor vehicle

SacramentoGO survey

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

If you are a resident of Sacramento county, you have probably received two glossy mailers from SacramentoGO, otherwise known as the Sacramento Transportation Authority. The agency is building up towards putting a measure on the November ballot that will add another half cent of sale tax to fund transportation in the county. This half cent would be added to the existing half cent of Measure A. I will have plenty to say about the tax measure in the future, but tonight I’ll focus on the authority’s “Tell Us What You Think” survey.

I took the online survey, and was pretty dissatisfied with the wording of the questions. By putting unrelated items into one choice, the survey tries to gain support for pro-motor-vehicle projects by conflating them with pro-active-transportation and pro-transit options. My notes from the survey are below.

If Sacramento County had additional funding for transportation, which would be a higher priority for you:
[note: I was not able to capture the two options here because trying to copy the text selects that item, but you’ll get the idea with the next few questions about the tricks they are trying to play; if someone manages to capture these for me, I’ll add them here]

Smoothing traffic flow on local streets
(Street maintenance, pothole fixes, synchronized traffic signals, street widening)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Conflates street maintenance with street widening, which should be unrelated to each other, and should have been asked separately.

Reducing congestion on Sacramento highways
(Fixing or upgrading major roadways and interchanges, adding carpool lanes)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Again, conflates fixing with upgrading, which should be unrelated to each other.

Investing in bridges and overcrossings
(Building or upgrading bridges over the rivers, improving or adding light rail)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Though there is one river crossing which might carry both motor vehicle and light rail (though it shouldn’t), the Green Line extension, this is not true of any other bridge, and this is an attempt to conflate car bridges with light rail bridges.

Adding bike paths
(American River Parkway improvements and adding bike paths to local streets)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
A reasonable option. The parkway receives $1M per year from Measure A, but all entities in the county have a backlog of desirable bike lanes of at least $1B.

Extending light rail service to additional locations
(Adding new rail lines and stations to expand the light rail network)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Seems reasonable at first glance, but what is not asked is which extensions. The Green Line to the Airport is a trophy project that will not serve local or regional needs, and current planning is largely ignoring the valuable extension to the northeast at least to American River College, and perhaps beyond.

Improving service on existing light rail routes
(Upgrading trains, improving cleanliness and security, increasing frequency of service)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Yes!

Improving sidewalks, trails, paths
(Pedestrian improvements to sidewalks and lighting, neighborhood traffic calming and safety upgrades near schools)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Yes! There is probably a backlog of $20B in the county for sidewalks.

Reducing pollution from traffic
(Key infrastructure investments to improve air quality
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Another wolf in sheep’s clothing. I am almost certain that SacTA will claim that roadway and highway widening will reduce air pollution, when in fact it will induce demand that will increase air pollution, including but not limited to greenhouse gas emissions.

Providing more transit programs/options for seniors and people with disabilities
(Expanded and affordable paratransit services)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Yes, but we need to be careful not to continue or establish low-productivity routes in an effort to serve seniors and disabled. There are other, more efficient ways of meeting this need.

Investing in reliable and convenient bus routes
(Bus service improvements, new routes or increased frequency)
Low Priority, Medium Priority, High Priority
Yes. But reliable and convenient means high frequency, which SacRT has not really provided or investigated.