Transportation

• Ensure robust transportation funding that meets the needs of our growing Sacramento region by pursuing new and reformed transportation funding methods and sources to implement the Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS) and invest in and protect the transportation infrastructure needed to implement the region’s economic prosperity plan.
  • Ensure federal and state funding sources are stable, predictable, flexible, and adequate to operate, maintain, rehabilitate, and expand the transportationsystem when there is an established need. Prioritize investment to maintain the transportation system, and reduce backlogs in system maintenance where they exist. Seek greater flexibility from state and federal sources to support ongoing maintenance investments.
  • Provide new and more flexible state and federal funding to enable testing and implementation of innovative mobility solutions that are affordable, accessible, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Support efforts to study and advocate for a sustainable replacement to the fuel tax, collaborating with the state, federal agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, and other organizations.
  • Support funding necessary for local and regional planning to ensure responsible agencies receive sufficient funding to fulfill their planning and programming obligations and ensure regional planning agencies maintain and enhance their funding decision-making authority.
  • Invest in regional planning capacity at all levels, ensure rural regions have a strong voice in the regional planning process, and strongly encourage local urban-rural coordination initiatives. Broaden eligibility of federal transportation funding programs to include funding broadband projects and high-speed communications networks in rural areas.
  • All new revenues should keep pace with inflation.

• Support increased and more flexible funding and policies that support public transit, including passenger rail, to address the Sacramento region’s transportation needs.

• Support the streamlining and expansion of innovative financing and project delivery tools to facilitate creative solutions for financing projects and project delivery, including efforts to reduce state and federal silos and reduce existing regulatory barriers.

• Promote the Sacramento region as a test bed for new technologies and innovation.
  • Support pilot projects aimed at making microtransit and micromobility work for urban, suburban, rural, and low-income areas of the Sacramento region.
  • Support and lead efforts to test and pilot roadway pricing mechanisms, such as facility-based tolling and mileage-based fees, in partnership with state, federal, and local agencies and private sector organizations, and, where appropriate, seek flexibility to use revenues for reinvestment in transit service in the same corridors.
  • Support innovative education and transportation demand management strategies and programs covering all parts of the Sacramento region, to offer a variety of alternatives to driving alone.
  • Support the testing and deployment in our region of connected and autonomous vehicles. This includes providing additional funding opportunities and more state and federal flexibility.
  • Support policies and funding that encourage combining innovation and technology and partnership with the private sector to find new and more efficient solutions to transportation issues.
• Support data-driven decision-making and performance measures.
  • Support the inclusion of data-driven decision-making and performance measurement as part of the federal transportation formula programs, with the goal of performance-based funding.
  • Support the simplifying and streamlining of the transportation planning process to be quicker, more efficient, more meaningful, and data-driven.
  • Strengthen regional access to data and support strong data-sharing requirements to improve the quality and quantity of data collected to reduce dollars wasted, including measures that provide for sharing of anonymized data from ridesharing services, connected and autonomous vehicles, shared mobility, and other sources that will allow for more informed planning and decision-making.

• Support new funding and planning opportunities to support electric vehicle infrastructure and programs for both private vehicles and public transit fleets ensuring equity and alignment with the MTP/SCS.

• Support policies that will empower and reward transportation agencies for operating, investing in, and managing the transportation system to more efficiently move people and goods safely with lower environmental, health and climate impacts.

Sustainable Development, Infrastructure, and Governance

• Secure funding and implementation for programs that encourage infill development and revitalization of commercial corridors.

• Ensure policies and funding to maximize the Sacramento region’s ability to implement its sustainable communities strategy and other strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and ensure climate resiliency, including supporting incentives, information, tools, programs, and technical assistance.

• Support new tools and funding to grow regional jobs and housing, including infrastructure improvements needed to enable new housing and employment opportunities in existing urban, suburban, and rural communities. Reduce regulatory barriers to housing development projects.

• Ensure equitable access to transportation, jobs, and housing and supporting infrastructure.
  • Support broadening transportation funding eligibility requirements to enable their use as a subsidy for low-income transportation system users, while ensuring discount fares aimed at boosting ridership and improving social equity do not result in reduced state funding.
  • Support efforts to expand access to broadband for low-income households and underserved areas.
  • Ensure that legislation aimed at benefiting disadvantaged communities uses a definition that includes low-income communities and does not rely exclusively on the state’s CalEnviroScreen definition.
  • Seek flexibility in state and federal funding and policies to allow for greater and more meaningful public outreach and engagement.

• Support additional financing options and other tools for local and regional community revitalization and economic development. Encourage multijurisdictional coordination without restrictions or other conditions on tax-increment benefits. Reduce regulatory barriers to community revitalization projects.

• Support incentives for jurisdictions that provide opportunities for more housing, including affordable and transit-oriented developments (TODs), and encourage the siting of these developments in infill areas near transportation resources.

• Ensure policies related to high frequency transit are inclusive of the diverse and unique characteristics of the Sacramento Region’s urban, suburban, and rural areas.

• Support affordable housing, including new funding and more flexibly for addressing affordable housing needs. Ensure local flexibility to provide affordable housing that is appropriate for local communities and remove disincentives and regulatory obstacles to providing affordable housing.

• Seek greater access to state cap-and-trade funding for the Sacramento region.
  • Support proposals that maximize investment revenues to implement, and in a manner consistent with, sustainable communities strategies and give regions a greater voice in determining how funds are awarded.
  • Ensure state investments favor integrated transportation and land use strategies.
  • Support grant criteria that recognize the unique public nature of transportation programming and infrastructure funding.
  • Encourage innovative projects and support grant criteria that allow time for transportation projects to be programmed and that support new housing in general instead of focusing on project readiness and specific projects.
  • Support funding for the development of modeling and measurement tools to improve performance measures to better evaluate and predict GHG reductions.
  • Support efforts to revisit the definition of Disadvantaged Communities to ensure more disadvantaged communities are given the opportunity to compete for funds.

• Support funding for local and regional agricultural infrastructure, including transportation, broadband, and other critical infrastructure important to the economics of agriculture and improving food access.

• Support additional resources and tools for local governments to preserve farmland and open space through public or private programs.

• Support efforts to prevent catastrophic fire and to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of private and public forests.

• Support policies to minimize flood risk with wise use of floodplains and sensitivity to unique land uses and resource impacts on property owners in designated floodplains.

• Support policies to update the Ralph M. Brown Act and incorporate the increased flexibility provided during the COVID-19 pandemic while ensuring public transparency and access to meetings.

Mega Region Legislative Platform

• Shape any legislation that updates SB 375 (Steinberg, 2008) in order to strengthen regional planning, including:
  • Seeking opportunities to achieve alignment of the timelines for the development of the Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS) to ensure coordination on forecasting assumptions, strategies, and investments to improve the movement of people and goods throughout the Mega Region.
  • Supporting legislation to increase the availability of funding at the regional level to help implement SCSs, as well as policy tools to reduce single-occupancy vehicle travel, reduce burdensome housing plus transportation costs to households, and reduce the amount of time and distance people must travel for daily needs, in a manner that ensures equitable policy outcomes. This includes increased availability of funding and financing tools for all infrastructure that supports infill development.
  • Support policy changes that move away from a focus on emission models and towards a focus on near term, ambitious but achievable actions that will reduce GHGs in partnership, rather than competition, with the state.

• Support new funding to help pay for affordable housing and support legislation that facilitates the construction of more housing in low-VMT locations and/or high opportunity areas to meet the needs of each of our regions’ respective current and future work force at all income levels. Support new investments that support job development in the jobs-poor/housing-rich parts of the megaregion

• Support policies, programs and investments aimed at making it more attractive for our residents to travel between our regions by passenger rail and public transit.

• Seek planning and infrastructure funding for the Mega Region and its local jurisdictions to better plan for and prepare for the effects of climate change, including extreme heat, sea level rise, flooding, and fire. Advocate for planning and funding to be prioritized for vulnerable and disadvantaged populations.

• Support strategic investments to improve goods movement for the agricultural supply chain and manufacturing logistics between the counties in the megaregion.

• Support additional funding opportunities for multimodal transportation investments in corridors which serve as gateways between regions.

• Support funding to achieve higher levels of operational efficiency and optimization of 5G networks. Infusion of funding for high speed bandwidth offers supercharge connections and data download speeds. It will help implement VMT reduction strategies focused on teleworking and strong, rapid connectivity for AV cars and AV freight. It will also make it more feasible for employers to support long- term teleworking of employees that would otherwise travel inter-regionally for work.

• Support new funding and planning opportunities for electric vehicle infrastructure and programs for both private vehicles and public transit fleets to ensure electric vehicle coordination within the Mega Region. Programs should focus on increasing mobility and minimizing transportation costs for the lowest income households.