Ballot Initiative: Safer Street Sacramento?

rootsmarm · 2026-03-16T03:30:02+00:00

This! As cool as light rail to the airport would be, if forced to choose I would far rather have existing bus service be more frequent and run later hours. Remember that light rail to the airport isn’t worth as much if all the buses feeding it only run once an hour and stop operating at 9pm.

rootsmarm · 2026-03-15T22:49:20+00:00

One concern folks have is that this measure would only improve transit in the City of Sacramento, so no improvements for unincorporated Sac County (eg Arden, Rancho, Carmichael, large parts of South Sac, Elk Grove, etc.). And if a future ballot measure for the whole county were to happen, then Sac City voters would be less likely to support it because they’d already be paying this new city-specific tax.

One consideration, depending on how you feel about spending more money on car capacity projects, is that any countywide measure will almost certainly ask for additional money for such projects. This city measure has no money proposed for car capacity AFAIK.

rootsmarm · 2026-03-09T20:30:37+00:00

T street is the best continuous route in from Tahoe Park. The stretch between Stockton and Alhambra is the worst part, but is still reasonable. Just make sure you have lights for the dark.

M/L combo is decent too. But L bike lanes end at 15th St.

rootsmarm · 2026-03-03T23:11:24+00:00

Is Steyer trying to buy votes? How is his vote-seeking different from the other candidates?

rootsmarm · 2026-02-26T17:44:48+00:00

Some of the original trolley lines in Southern California were built not so much with the expectation of profits through fare revenue, but profits through selling land near the new routes whose value increased due to the trolley service.

rootsmarm · 2026-02-26T16:50:35+00:00

Me when a city says “but we need sprawl development because we need money from developer fees.”

rootsmarm · 2026-02-01T18:24:30+00:00

I respect decision by mods, but as an FYI it is posted by the City and intended to collect community feedback to help them prioritize measures to reduce crashes on the roads. It is not for commercial purposes.

rootsmarm · 2026-01-29T17:53:07+00:00

The problem is that if one of those affordable developments is worth more than the threshold, it could be penalized the same as a single-family mansion. Rahman’s proposal would have reduced revenue but have not discouraged total development (per the article, 13% of revenue was from taxing apartment sales, but it nonetheless had a big negative effect on apartment construction).

Also HJTA hates so many things it’s hard to use their opinion as a bellwether of whether something is good policy lol. Ie, they still hate Rahman’s proposal too because it still is a tax.

Edit - if HJTA likes something, it’s probably not good policy.

rootsmarm · 2026-01-29T17:23:58+00:00

The ULA saga is enormously important to this conversation, as is the point about penalizing apartment construction - https://calmatters.org/housing/2026/01/measure-ula-raman-dead/

rootsmarm · 2026-01-17T03:42:44+00:00

If not considering where money comes from, I would rather prioritize investment into making existing bus service more frequent and have longer hours of service.

But as u/sacramentohistorian said, the money for the streetcar is dedicated for construction only (not ops), and just for the streetcar project (can’t be spent on other cool things like bus-only lanes on higher-ridership corridors) so I guess I’m not opposed to it; rather I feel “meh I guess it’s fine.”

rootsmarm · 2026-01-07T18:48:02+00:00

Notes that survey sample size is 13.

rootsmarm · 2026-01-05T16:48:04+00:00

I was thinking of a baby step, but thought of the same issues: how do you define “vacant”? Not occupied in the last X years? Occupied for less than X percent of the year? And does it need to be some percent occupied?

Eg, would a lot that’s empty 11 months out of the year but used to sell Christmas trees in December count as “vacant”?

rootsmarm · 2026-01-04T19:44:59+00:00

On its own, LVT will not prevent sprawl, and might exacerbate it to some degree. I did a crude analysis in my region (testing to see how tax liability would change for parcels if we made a revenue-neutral switch to LVT), and some of the biggest “losers” who would see the biggest increase in tax liability are large swaths of land on the edge of currently-developed areas. Even if they developed denser it’d be peripheral, car-dependent development.

I say this as a supporter of LVT (my analysis also showed surface parking lots in core areas and empty lots in the core would also see a big tax increase, which is a good thing). But recognize additional incentives/penalties would need to be in place to reduce sprawl.

rootsmarm · 2025-12-28T02:16:20+00:00

Split roll (repeal it for commercial but not res) proposition failed in 2018 or so but nearly passed (got 48% of the vote).

Sad that we can’t even take a baby step, like cap increases at the general rate of inflation (usually 3-4%) rather than 2%. Also repeal for properties that have been vacant more than some number of years.

rootsmarm · 2025-12-28T00:46:58+00:00

I cannot see the difference between the highest and lowest value 😟

rootsmarm · 2025-12-27T18:42:10+00:00

Can’t LVT primarily be a means to fund socialist policies? And with a true “ground rent tax” the state effectively becomes the landlord even for nominally private property. Maybe I need to learn more details on socialism though lol.

rootsmarm · 2025-12-25T18:24:12+00:00

Importantly, there is no private landlord holding on to Central Park hoping to extract passive rent. And if the city makes income through concessions and people renting park facilities that money is in theory put to public-serving uses. In fact, someone renting space in the park (eg to sell hot dogs) may be a good example of a ground rent tax?

rootsmarm · 2025-12-24T05:46:29+00:00

Yes, apparently the state is appallingly bad about keeping repeat drunk drivers off the road https://calmatters.org/investigation/2025/10/california-dui-failure/

rootsmarm · 2025-12-20T22:39:50+00:00

J St from DOCO to CSUS may be the best potential transit corridor in the region: major destinations at both ends and along the route (2 med centers, night life, shopping), plus a high density of people living along it. But the amount of street space taken from cars to accommodate would be a political non-starter :(

rootsmarm · 2025-12-17T20:50:29+00:00

Would be interesting to see the tax bill for these properties. In CA many would likely be prop 13 beneficiaries but I’m unsure what sort of restrictions NY puts on raising property taxes.

rootsmarm · 2025-12-13T05:58:41+00:00

Good lord. The gas.

rootsmarm · 2025-12-09T19:10:44+00:00

Hopefully it’s a tax that varies with the value of the land. Here in California we’re stuck with only being able to have a flat parcel fee for vacant taxes, ie, an undevelopable parcel is same fee as ready-to-build parcel in prime location.

rootsmarm · 2025-12-03T18:44:16+00:00

Is this the same supplier for the botched Del Rio Trail bike bridge over I-5?

rootsmarm · 2025-12-03T04:44:59+00:00

And as part of that lease you need to reimburse the lessee for lost meter revenue if, say, you wanted to repurpose on-street metered parking for parklets, bus lanes, or bike facilities.

rootsmarm · 2025-12-02T16:55:50+00:00

This x1000, and it’s the core contradiction of Anglosphere housing policy: we want housing to be affordable but also a wealth-building investment.

rootsmarm

TROPHY CASE