What's at stake?
This outreach data is another insight into what thousands of Fresno County residents would want to see prioritized in the next iteration of Measure C, the county transportation tax that will expire in 2027.
Improved and better-maintained neighborhood roads — especially those near parks, schools and community centers — is Fresno County residents’ top priority for transportation spending, according to four months of outreach from a community coalition.
Transportation for All, a coalition of over a dozen community organizations, collected over 4,500 responses from Fresno County residents between April and August and highlighted these results at a news conference Monday morning.
The coalition has been collecting residents’ input on what the next iteration of Fresno County’s transportation tax, Measure C, should look like before the current version expires in 2027.
The second highest priority that the coalition heard from residents was improvements to public transportation, especially shortening wait times at bus stops and upgrading stops with benches, shade and lighting.
That was followed by residents’ third-highest priority: investments in sidewalks. That included both repairs to existing ones and adding sidewalks in neighborhoods that lack them.
These results reflect outreach from 34 community meetings Transportation for All conducted at locations across the county, as well as smaller meetings at residents’ homes, said Tania Pacheco-Werner, executive director at Fresno State’s Central Valley Health Policy Institute. The coalition contracted with Pacheco-Werner’s team to assist with data analysis.
Transportation for All was at first collecting this community feedback separately from the government-led Measure C renewal process spearheaded by the Fresno Council of Governments. But the groups have agreed to work together since a vote in June.
Though Monday’s press conference was hosted by Transportation for All and not the Fresno Council of Governments (Fresno COG), coalition leaders said this isn’t a sign of any fracture in the partnership.
The coalition always intended to share the results of their data collection with the public, said Veronica Garibay, coalition member and executive director of Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability. Pieces of this data have also already been shared at COG meetings based on what those meeting agendas covered on a given day, coalition leaders added.
But it’s also indicative of the compromise that Fresno COG and the coalition reached back in June when they agreed to work as partners on the Measure C renewal.
The government’s role, leaders said, is to decide whether to approve the spending plan that COG staff and steering committee members come up with before it goes in front of voters in November 2026. The coalition’s role is to engage the community.
“This is what public-government partnerships look like,” said Sandra Celedon, coalition member and president of Fresno Building Healthy Communities, which hosted Monday’s news conference. Celedon is also a candidate for California Assembly District 31.
“This is not a separation. This is a complement. We’re complementary.”
Community feedback has been consistent across surveys
Earlier this summer, Fresno COG staff collected its own survey results from about 1,300 residents on top Measure C spending priorities. That survey yielded some similar results to the coalition’s data.
Fresno COG’s data, presented to the Measure C renewal steering committee as well as the its policy board in July, also showed residents’ top priority was local street and road maintenance. The second and third-place priorities were bike and pedestrian networks, followed by public transit — similar to Transportation for All’s second and third-place priority areas but in the opposite order.
But where Transportation for All’s outreach data differs most from Fresno COG’s, Celedon said, is that it was collected across multiple phases.
That meant going back to residents multiple times to find out greater specificity of what precisely they want Measure C to look like, instead of making “assumptions about what we think people want,” she said.
For instance, in earlier rounds of data collection Pacheco-Werner said the coalition received many responses about the issues extreme heat in Fresno poses to accessing transportation. So in a subsequent phase, they polled people on whether transportation investments should account for extreme heat and heard 86% of respondents say yes.
Who this data represents
Transportation for All also received input from residents living all over the county, including 72 different ZIP codes, Pacheco-Werner said.
The top 10 ZIP city codes represented in Transportation for All’s data included 93702, 93703, 93706 93722 and 93727. These encompass the Roosevelt, McLane, Edison and west central Fresno neighborhoods, as well as some of the southwestern and southeastern-most parts of the city.
The top rural ZIP codes were in small cities like San Joaquin, Reedley, Orange Cove, Mendota, Firebaugh and Huron.
Some of these ZIP codes are home to Fresno County’s highest levels of concentrated poverty.
That included residents who’d never been engaged with in transportation planning processes before, Garibay said.
What’s next in the Measure C renewal process?
Between COG’s online survey and Transportation for All’s months of outreach, the county has responses from thousands of Fresno County residents on Measure C spending priorities.
But COG hasn’t yet conducted formal polling with likely voters on what they could support at the ballot box next November.
That will launch later in September, according to COG.
Also later this month, the Measure C renewal steering committee is expected to finalize its recommendations to the COG policy board on what percentage of Measure C dollars should go to broad spending categories, including: neighborhood roads, public transportation, active transportation, regional connectivity, administration and “other.”
That board is made up of representatives for each of Fresno County’s 15 cities, plus a county representative.
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