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.)

Note: This and any transit topic posts on the measure will be cross-posted to Getting Around Sacramento.

First, some background. Measure A, the transportation sales tax measure which created Sacramento Transportation Authority, was passed in 1988. In 2004, it was renewed for a 30-year term, so through 2034. It is a half cent sales tax, of which 38.3% is allocated to transit. This is roughly a third of the total, so the effective sales tax allocation to transit is 1/6 of cent. Measure B, which was on the November 2016 ballot, was for a separate half cent sales tax, of which 29.9% was allocated to transit. If the measure passed, this would bring transit to about 1/3 of a cent. The measure failed by not reaching the required 2/3 of votes. Sacramento Transportation Authority developed a proposed measure for 2020, tentatively called Measure A+, but it was not placed on the ballot because voter surveys and the political climate indicated it was very unlikely to pass. It would have allocated 13.2% to transit, so overall transit would be about 1/5 of a cent. Acceptable transit agencies in California have income of at least 1/2 cent sales tax equivalent (sometimes from other sources beside sales tax), and the more successful have rates of about 1 cent. None of these sales tax measure would have brought transit in Sacramento County anywhere close to the 1/2 cent rate.

The new transportation sales tax measure proposed for the November 2022 ballot is based somewhat on the two previous measures, the failed 2016 and the withdrawn 2020. This measure, in Exhibit A: Transportation Expenditure Plan, allocates 25.1% to transit. This would total less than 1/3 of a cent for transit. There is also a Transit and Rail Congestion Improvement Projects category for 10.9%, however, this project area is intended to mitigate for increased VMT (vehicle miles traveled) and GHG (greenhouse gas emissions) generated by roadway projects, so we do not see it as funds for transit but rather as mitigation expenditures that would be requiring in any case.

So, the proposed transportation sales tax continues the pattern of favoring motor vehicle travel and under-investing in transit.

Two future posts will talk about the requirements placed on SacRT which are not placed on other transportation agencies, and on SacRT’s desperate need for funding.

• Measure A 2022
• SacRT
• transportation funding