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A proposed ballot measure that would have generated $75 million annually for safer streets in Sacramento failed to make the November ballot despite gathering 10% more signatures than required, organizers announced Friday.
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The ballot measure would have directed a half-cent sales tax increase to fund transit projects and fix surface streets in the city.
Safer Sac Streets, the organization behind the effort, submitted 32,481 signatures to the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters on June 30. By submitting 10% more than the minimum, the measure qualified for a random sample count, which was key to getting it on the November ballot as a full count takes around three months.
Based on a random sample of 3% of the total signatures submitted, the county estimates that only about 25,500 were valid, spokesperson Ken Casparis said. The most common reason for signature invalidation was that the person signing was not registered to vote.
“This result is heartbreaking for all of us who have invested so much time, expense, and energy into bringing this measure forward,” organizers wrote in a Friday email to supporters.
Safer Sac Streets is still investigating whether the measure could qualify for a 2028 election, but organizers wrote in the email that it was clear that the measure will not be on this November’s ballot.
“We’re losing 75 million a year until we pass a similar measure in the future that can be used on road, bike and pedestrian safety, as well as transit,” Safer Sac Streets organizer and former city councilmember Steve Cohn said.
The city is also losing the opportunity to leverage state and federal funds, as those grants typically match local available funding. Cohn said that there is little money available for street safety and transit projects beyond what is already in the city’s maintenance program, which he called “substandard.”
Read more Sales tax measure for safer Sacramento streets fails to make November ballot
“To put it in real terms, it’s going to mean a statistical probability that more people will be injured and killed in collisions — particularly pedestrians and cyclists, but also people in vehicles,” he said. “It’s a serious problem not to have the funding we need to make our streets safer and give people alternative modes of transportation, particularly transit, to offset the trips they have to do by car.”
Sacramento street deaths climb
One of the key motivations behind the ballot measure effort was to curb road deaths in the city. At least 20 people died on Sacramento roads in the first five months of the year. Car crashes killed at least 32 in 2025.
The City Council has been criticized by road safety advocates this year for not allocating significant general funds toward its “Vision Zero” pledge made in 2017 to eliminate all traffic fatalities within 10 years.
Facing a multimillion dollar budget deficit for the following fiscal year, the city opted not to fund the Active Transportation Commission’s recommendations for enhanced street safety, though several council members said they would work to fund some of the recommendations next budget cycle.
Cohn said that despite the disappointing result of the ballot petition, the process helped create a strong local coalition to advocate for funding for safer streets and transit in future years. He’s hoping that enthusiasm reaches beyond the city into the rest of the county and region.
“It’s premature for us who are in the leadership to know what’s next other than we know the problems aren’t going to go away,” he said. “We’re going to continue to look at different options so we can move forward and not just accept our fate as one of the worst cities in the country for traffic safety.”
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