On August 19, 2025, SacRT held its last in a series of community events called Transit Ideas Exchange, at District 56 in Elk Grove. STAR Action Team Lead Dan Allison attended this event. Note that due to poor bus service in Elk Grove, Dan rode his bicycle to and from the CRC light rail station.

The event was opened by Elk Grove Mayor and SacRT Board Vice-Chair Bobbie Singh-Allen. SacRT General Manager Henry Li then introduced the purpose of the event, which he called “dialog on transit needs”. He said that no decision had been made, by anyone, on ballot measure for 2026, but they were gathering community input about what was desired if a measure went on the ballot. And to judge whether the community would support a ballot measure with funding for transit. Henry, for some reason, highlighted the largely unpopular streetcar project and said that SacRT is not putting any funds into it, though it certainly has in the past.

The four main ideas for a measure are: 1) Sacramento Transportation Authority (SacTA) transsportation sales tax measure for the most though probably not all of the county (Galt has apparently reached its sales tax limit), which would include transit funding, probably one-half cent; 2) two measures, one for transit and another for other transportation, one-quarter cent each; 3) a measure sponsored by SacRT for a portion, not all, of its service area, either one-quarter or one-half cent; and 4) a citizen-sponsored measure for transit, amount uncertain. The first three, as government sponsored measures, require a 2/3 yes vote to pass, while the fourth requires only 50% + 1 to pass, which it its appeal. In a generally anti-tax county, it is difficult though not impossible to achieve 2/3, though school districts and some other special district succeed. See SacMoves Coalition: transportation funding, and other posts for more information. Notes from the August 15 SacMoves meeting will also be useful, when available.

Anthony Adams, Director of Planning for SacRT, then showed a long series of slides about the fiscal cliff coming for SacRT in 2030, when extra state funding runs out, and the use of capital funding to cover operations shortfall reaches its limit. SacRT cannot continue to shift capital to operations indefinitely, otherwise the whole system will start to fall apart. The graphic below summarizes this issue. SacRT is better off than many transit agencies, but certainly not out of the woods. Anthony went on for quite some while highlighting things that SacRT does well, not least of which is RydeFreeRT, the free transit pass program for K-12 students, and the SacRT Flex program for seniors, disabled, and low-icome, which is a sustainable replacement for SmaRT Ride.

Well more than half of the meeting was taken by these presentations, which amounted to a marketing campaign by SacRT.

Breakout groups of attendees, facilitated by a SacRT staff member, were then formed. There were a series of questions (not captured), which led to discussions. In my group, the concerns and ideas expressed included:

• sharing experiences, both positive and negative
• concerns about reliability
• new light rail cars: Wheelchair user complained about ramps, no override by ramps of regular door use, bicycles crowding other users, nothing to hang on to in the priority position
• no bike storage at stations (check: bicycle parking at UCD Med)
• get SacState to fund transit

After the breakout groups, there was an online ‘vote’ for how participants would spend $100 on transit if they had the choice. The slide below shows the results. This Monopoly-like game was also done at the other community workshops, and I understand that the results were similar though not the same. Interestingly, though this meeting took place in Elk Grove, close to one of the proposed light rail or BRT stations for District 56, BRT or light rail to Elk Grove was not selected by the participants. At this workshop, and all of them so far as STAR knows, better bus service was what people wanted.

Elk Grove City Council member, and SacRT Board member, Rod Brewer, closed with promotion of light rail to Elk Grove. Apparently, he failed to read the room.

• SacRT Transit Idea Exchange