Another sales tax fight is coming to Sacramento. This one is about your commute

What transportation projects are most important to Sacramento? Ask your questions and add your opinions to the form at the bottom of this story, and reporter Tony Bizjak may answer your question in a future column.

What transportation improvements do Sacramentans want? Are those the improvements their communities really need for healthy long-term growth?

It’s a tricky and nuanced question that county leaders with widely differing philosophies are trying to sort through this month.

Their goal, they say, is to come to an agreement that will allow them to put a sales tax measure on the November ballot in Sacramento County that would generate $8 billion over the next 40 years to expand and modernize the region’s transportation system.

Coming out of a stifling recession, Sacramento is in growth mode. That means more congested commutes. But it also means an opportunity to examine the growth patterns that have created ever-longer commutes.

The Sacramento Transportation Authority, made up of city representatives and county supervisors, is using a recent poll gauging voter interest as its guidepost and debate starting point. The survey involved 1,600 potential voters.

Here are some highlights from the poll:

It’s about the potholes

Sacramento Supervisor Don Nottoli recently complained that south county roads are so bad the potholes have potholes. Measure A campaign strategist David Townsend blew his tire out in a pothole on his way home from a Measure A meeting.

It’s no surprise the poll shows that voters are most interested in fixing cracked and crumbling roads. Any successful ballot measure will need to make basic road maintenance a top priority.

Notably, though, safer walking routes to schools ranks high on the list. And better transit for non-driving seniors follows close behind. Those results show that even if Sacramento commuters are upset with congested commutes, they are, at heart, concerned about issues young and old residents face in trying to lead safe and healthy lives.

Sacramento Regional Transit recently began letting students ride buses and light rail for free. The response has been positive, but the agency says it needs taxpayer support to keep it going.

Traffic on Highway 50 and major streets

Sixty-three percent of likely Sacramento voters say freeway congestion is a very serious problem. But if you include those who say freeway congestion is at least “somewhat” of a problem, and if you throw in major street congestion – Yeah, we’re talking about you, Sunrise Boulevard – then the number of concerned voters jumps to 93 percent.

This is where the philosophical debate starts: What is the best approach to reducing traffic congestion?

Do you continue to widen freeways and surface streets? Twenty years ago, this was the dominant congestion-relief theory. But it is being challenged by planners who would rather see cities focus on remolding themselves into denser or more urban-style places where more people can live and work in the same community, taking more commuters off freeways and making transit, biking and walking more doable.

Supervisor Frost: Commuters drive cars

Supervisor Sue Frost, whose district encompasses older suburban areas where bus service is limited, is pushing to focus on fixing and expanding roads rather than on mass transit. Her point: Buses and trains are merely a niche service and will continue to carry only a small percentage of commuters for decades to come.

“The data is telling me that we need to focus on roads,” she said. “The majority of the population is driving on the highways ... and we could have these key projects that relieve congestion.”

She joins representatives from Folsom, Rancho Cordova and Elk Grove in advocating for turning White Rock Road, Grant Line Road and Kammerer Road into an expressway from the El Dorado County line, around the bottom of Elk Grove and over Highway 99 to Interstate 5.

That road, called the Capital SouthEast Connector Expressway, scored a 39 percent “extremely or very important” rating in the poll. But another 34 percent of poll respondents said it is “somewhat important,” and it has strong support among east county leaders who call it a lifeline for future residents south of Highway 50, giving them an alternate commute corridor instead of highways 50 and 99, both of which are already congested.

Folsom Councilwoman Kerri Howell, a corridor supporter, last week asked for a computer analysis to determine how much highway stress relief the beltway would provide.

That said, east county officials also want Measure A money to fund several new interchanges in Folsom to allow future residents near the connector expressway to also have easy access to Highway 50 – a signal that Folsom’s growth plans south of 50 will increase traffic on the freeway.

Councilman Hansen: Give commuters options

The poll numbers also show that voters support expanding the county’s recently improved SacRT bus and light rail service, including extending light rail to the airport.

Sacramento Councilman Steve Hansen is among STA board members who believe the county needs to invest in transit as well as add housing near jobs to shorten commutes.

That means using some transportation funds to turn the downtown Railyards into a live-work-play community, served by robust transit, pulling in thousands of new residents next to jobs, rather than seeing them buy homes in farther reaches of the county.

“We’re at a crossroads,” Hansen said. Central Sacramento already has become the region’s multi-modal nexus, with Jump e-electric bikes, on-street rentable GIG cars, a new Uber-style, app-based bus service called SmaRT Ride, and increasing bike lanes on streets.

That, and a surge in new downtown housing, has led to the emergence of what is called the ”car-lite” lifestyle.

The critical question, though, is whether that approach can work in traditionally suburban communities such as Folsom, where there are four light rail stations, including one just outside of the city at Hazel Avenue, but no station planned near the expansive new subdivisions underway south of Highway 50.

Why another tax measure?

There is a critical up-front challenge facing Measure A proponents: How do they persuade voters that the county needs more money when it already has a half-cent transportation sales tax in place?

The current tax will expire in 2039. The second tax, which could be in place for 40 years, would overlap the first one for nearly half that time. Moreover, state officials increased the gas pump tax two years ago with SB 1, and send much of that money to cities and counties for some of the same work being discussed for the new tax measure.

Fiscal conservatives say this is over-taxation, and that government should do better with they money it has.

Proponents of the new Measure A offer several justifications for their request:

• Although some SB 1 funds are automatically distributed to cities and counties based on population and lane miles, other large chunks of SB 1 revenue are packaged in competitive grants. That means cities and counties must have a substantial amount of local “matching” revenue to put into the pot to compete for that extra money.
• SB 1 gas pump revenues will dwindle over time as more California drivers buy gas-electric cars, all-electric cars, or vehicles that get higher miles per gallon, thus reducing or slowing the growth of the state’s gas pump tax revenues.
• The transportation spending needs in Sacramento County and its cities extend far beyond the amount of money available with the current Measure A revenues and SB 1.

Elk Grove’s Suen: Compromise, please

The STA has published a preliminary plan on how to divvy up the expected tax revenues. It includes lists of projects that would be funded in each of the county’s cities. That plan, however, represents a starting point. Negotiations are ongoing on what a final project and funding mix might look like.

The STA board meets again Thursday to discuss the debate. STA Chair Darren Suen, an Elk Grove city councilman, said he hopes the group can reach a compromise in the next few weeks.

Suen himself embodies the push-pull of the moment.

He is a longer-distance car commuter who lives and works in two areas that are unlikely to get adequate transit service under any upcoming spending plan. He would like some wider roads to get where he is going, such as the southeast county connector road.

But he also wants substantial funding to extend light rail into Elk Grove from its current Cosumnes River College terminus, as well as a Bus Rapid Transit line from that new light rail station through Elk Grove. And he’s pushing to bring some version of downtown’s popular electric rental bikes to his city.

Sacramento’s air quality problem

There is another reason Suen and some of his STA compatriots want a solid share of the money to go toward shortening commutes and getting more people out of cars. Sacramento currently fails to meet federal clean air standards, and is essentially on notice from the federal government. If the new measure funds end up encouraging more people to drive longer distances, that could disqualify Sacramento from receiving state and federal transportation funds.

As STA chair, Suen hopes to find a middle ground.

“To road folks, we are trying to get people to shift modes,” he said. “To the transit folks, don’t think everybody is going to jump out of their cars tomorrow. It is complex. But we have to try to communicate that we need to invest in a multi-modal expenditure plan.”

This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.