“If we’re going to invest in roads, how are we going to offset those goals with our goals for (the environment)?”

By Robin Epley | July 21, 2023 | The Sacramento Bee

“They’re not wrong that the road conditions in Sacramento, all over the county, are bad,” Sam Rice told me. “(But) roads degrade, that’s what they do.” Rice is the transportation team lead for the Environmental Council of Sacramento and sits on the board for the Sacramento Metro Advocates for Rail and Transit, where he advises the city of Sacramento and other communities on how the future of transportation can co-exist with smart climate policy. “Road investment in the past has always been something that we simply did out of habit and it’s something that I feel, in the future, we should be thinking of in the context of complete streets,” Rice said. “If we’re going to invest in roads, how are we going to offset those goals with our goals for (the environment)?”

STA Mtg: Future Transportation Funding 8/10

On August 10, 2023, the Sacramento Transportation Authority (STA) will receive information on the activities of the future transportation funding subcommittee and related efforts. This item is number 9 on the agenda. Please attend!

Access the agenda and more here: https://agendanet.saccounty.gov/SacramentoTransportationAuthority/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=8246&doctype=1

Supporting Documents

Item 9 – Staff Report Future Funding Report Out.docx

Item 9 – ATT 1 PPT Previous Funding Efforts.pdf

Item 9 – ATT 2 PPT SACOG Presentation for STA.pdf

Item 9 – ATT 3 STA Cover Letter and GHG Overview Memo.pdf

STA Measure A passed in 2004 – what it has done, what it will do by 2039

July 11, 2023

Research by Liam Huber, Master’s Student at UC Davis Environmental Policy and Management

Click here or on the image below for the document.

Sales tax increases to improve Sacramento County keep getting rejected. Here’s why

June 18, 2023 | By the Sacramento Bee Editorial Board

It has been nearly 20 years since Sacramento County voters managed to raise the local sales tax to address transportation needs: A measure in 2016 barely missed the required two-thirds voter threshold; a follow-up attempt in 2020 was pulled from the ballot; and then there was the flame-out of Measure A last November. Measure A’s last iteration was a failed experiment to place a sales tax measure on the ballot through an initiative campaign bankrolled by builders and trade unions. The measure proposed the construction of several roads that weren’t even on the regional planning agency’s list. While it deserved to fail, Measure A represents the third unsuccessful attempt in just six years to find a combination of transportation investments that voters could approve.

Sacramento is at a tipping point. What’s the future of housing, sprawl and racial inequality?

June 12, 2023 | By Ryan Lillis

The Sacramento region is at a tipping point. And the next few years will determine what shape we leave it in for the next generation. The region’s housing is less expensive than California’s coastal cities, a selling point that motivated thousands of new residents to move inland since the start of the pandemic. Yet housing prices and rents have skyrocketed the past three years, and fewer than one-third of residents here can now afford to buy the median-priced home. Within the past few months, the Sacramento area became a “minority-majority” region, meaning white residents now make up less than 50% of the population. Still, substantial racial disparities in income, education and access to housing persist, even after the racial reckoning of 2020. Many commercial corridors remain starved for investment, especially those running through lower-income neighborhoods.

How special interests exploited a loophole and put a Sacramento County tax hike on the ballot, SacBee, October 19, 2022

By The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board | October 19, 2022 | The Sacramento Bee

In their purest form, citizens’ initiatives are supposed to represent grassroots democracy, rallying a wide range of people behind a single cause. Measure A is the antithesis of that. It’s democracy purchased by a select few citizens who are spending money to make even more in the decades to come, heedless of the cost to the public.
In this case, the grassroots response is the opposition to the citizens’ initiative. And it’s wide-ranging, including anti-tax conservatives, environmentalists, climate activists and good government advocates. They just need 50.01% to stop it.

Click here to read the full article.