Fresno County voters will decide on Nov. 3 whether to replace Measure C, the half-cent transportation sales tax that has paid for the county’s freeways, road repairs and bus service since 1987 and expires next summer.
Measure S — the “Fresno County Transportation Improvement Act” — would keep the same half-cent tax as Measure C for 30 more years, starting next summer. Its backers project it would raise about $7.4 billion over those 30 years.
Unlike every Measure C renewal attempt since 1986, Measure S only needs a simple majority to pass. It is a citizens’ initiative: supporters turned in more than 32,000 petition signatures, and the county registrar verified enough of them — 22,205, just over the 21,909 required — to put it on the ballot. That means it is not held to the two-thirds threshold that sank the 2022 renewal effort at 58%.
Measure S makes three big promises: fix neighborhood roads first, make students safer near schools, and keep public transit running.
And it does something no voter-approved version of Measure C has done before — it ties the money to measurable targets on neighborhood road quality and school safety, and writes spending rules into law that cities must meet before they can widen roads. Annual independent audits, reviewed by a citizens oversight committee where elected officials are banned, will check that the rules are followed.
Will Measure S add to my taxes?
No — not compared to what you pay today. Measure S would begin collecting on July 1, 2027, the day after Measure C stops. The half-cent rate stays the same.
Legally, though, Measure S is a new tax, not an extension of Measure C. That distinction is why the Board of Supervisors, when it voted in August to move the measure to March 2028, rewrote the ballot question to read “impose a new half-cent sales tax.” A judge later ruled the measure must appear on the November ballot under a new state law, AB 1923.
If Measure S fails, the half-cent Measure C tax disappears after June 2027 and your sales tax rate goes down by half a cent, unless another measure replaces it.
How does this plan work, and what’s new?
This spending plan is more transparent than the last few versions of Measure C.
In the old versions of Measure C, most of the money went out with few strings attached. The original 1986 measure and the 2006 extension handed most of the money to cities as “flex dollars” and to a list of projects in the regional highway program, and it was spent, according to a report commissioned by the county, “without being tied to specific success metrics.”
In recent years, that has become a major problem for residents across the county, as sprawl development that those new highways served failed to deliver the promised economic prosperity.
Instead, local roads have become filled with potholes. Between the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and 2020, Fresno County’s average pavement score fell 14 points — the biggest drop among California’s 10 biggest counties.
“I go to a lot of places, and I hear from people that we spent all this money on Measure C but our roads are still terrible,” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said at the Dec. 18, 2025 Fresno Council of Governments meeting where an initial version of the plan was approved.
“So there is a belief out there that we haven’t spent money appropriately.”
Measure S’s backers hope this new plan corrects that. In a blow to developers and their lobbyists, none of Measure S’s neighborhood road money can pay for streets in new growth areas or new master planned towns. (Sorry, SEDA).
Measure S would work mainly through a new transparency structure run by a group of independent citizens. Politicians and their staffers are banned from being on the committee.
The main rule: before a city can spend its Measure S road money on widening roads, its existing neighborhood streets have to be taken care of first. Even then, it can spend no more than 5% a year on widening.
How will this be measured? By Measure S’s two major goals:
1) Fixing neighborhood streets. Roads are graded on something called the Pavement Condition Index (PCI), on a 0-to-100 scale. Each city’s streets must average at least 70 — the bottom of the “good” range. And every single street must score at least 65 — “fair” — before a city can spend Measure S money widening roads.
To give you an idea of what a PCI in the mid-60s looks like – that’s about the average condition of streets in the Bay Area cities of Alameda and Fairfield. Yes – even Mendota and Huron would need to look like that!
You’re probably thinking – “Come on, Fresno County and Measure S could never pull that off – there’s no way the streets of this poor county could be ballin’ like that!” – but you’d be wrong.
The county’s main transportation planning agency, Fresno COG, designed Measure S to specifically accomplish this goal.
Measure S was designed to devote about $160 million a year to road repaving, new sidewalks and other safety projects. This is enough to get the county’s roads to lift the countywide average to about 70 by the early 2040s and hold it there into the 2050s.
That would put Fresno’s roads on par with San Diego County and Santa Clara County – home to Palo Alto and Mountain View.
When will your street get fixed? Measure S will follow a “worst first” approach: the neighborhood roads in the worst condition get fixed first.
In summary, if leaders spend Measure S money the way it’s intended, supporters say they should be able to repair local roads and eventually unlock money to widen streets.
2) Safe routes to school. The first version of Measure C from the 1980s was obsessed with speed: it paved Fresno’s farmland into the big, beautiful highways that we know and love today. Think Highway 41, 180, 168.
Measure S has a similarly vast vision – but with safety, not speed, in mind.
Measure S aims to build at least 150 projects within a mile of schools by 2057 that would make it safer for kids to walk to and from school, cross the street to get picked up by their parents, etc.
This is the other major part of Measure S’s accountability structure. By July 2029, each city and the county must count the serious injuries and deaths within a mile of every school over the prior five years, set yearly targets to reduce them, and adopt a plan to increase school safety after at least three public meetings.
If a city or the county fails to get a plan for the kids done? They lose their share of Measure S’s neighborhood road money — all of it, pothole repairs included.
“How do we ensure money is being spent on neighborhood roads, and not road widening, which is how the money has been spent in the past?” Dyer said, describing Measure S’s approach at the December meeting.
What does the rest of the plan look like?
The plan reflects what voters told pollsters. In an October 2025 survey of 1,660 likely voters commissioned for the COG renewal process, fixing potholes (82%) and prioritizing the worst roads (80%) topped the list of features voters called very important. Sixty-two percent also said maintaining public transit service was very important, and 60% said preventing transit cuts was.
A separate countywide survey conducted for Fresno COG found 68% of residents rated improving local bus service as highly important.
Keeping transit running. A quarter of the money goes to transit — 70% of that to Fresno Area Express, 20% to the Fresno County Rural Transit Agency and 10% to Clovis Transit — and paratransit for seniors and people with disabilities must be funded first. Each agency must show year-over-year improvement on a set of measures: ridership, how many urban routes run every 15 minutes or better, travel times to key destinations, transfers, wait times and on-time performance.
Seniors and military veterans get free bus fares + new technology. Another 4% of the measure pays for free fares for seniors 62 and older, active-duty military, veterans, people with disabilities, students and children. Whatever is left goes out as competitive grants for things like electric-vehicle chargers, mobility hubs and broadband for telecommuting.
Regional roads and highways. Just 4% goes to projects that serve more than one city, including state highways — about $223 million over 30 years by the county’s estimate. Cities, the county and Caltrans compete for it, and projects must reduce driving, reduce crashes, increase walking, biking or transit, clean the air, improve access to jobs or bring other direct local benefits. This is genuinely new: before, highway expansions could just be put on Measure C’s project list with no proof that the public would benefit.
In another new transparency measure, these projects will only be selected after at least three public meetings — one each on the east side, the west side and in the Fresno metro area. Money is handed out in four rounds, the first by June 30, 2028, and agencies are only reimbursed after they spend, never advanced.
The last 2% would be split between administering the measure and Fresno Yosemite International Airport.
| Program | Share | What it pays for |
| Neighborhood streets & roads | 65% | Repaving, potholes, sidewalks, curb ramps, lighting, traffic calming, Safe Routes to School, bike lanes — split among the 15 cities and county |
| Public transit | 25% | FAX 70%, rural transit 20%, Clovis Transit 10% |
| Regional roads & highways | 4% | Projects that serve more than one city, including state highways, chosen in public meetings; must cut driving, crashes or pollution, or add other local benefit |
| Airport | 1% | Fresno Yosemite International |
| Access & innovation | 4% | Free fares for seniors, students, veterans and people with disabilities first; then clean-energy and technology grants |
| Administration | 1% | Fresno COG |
Over 30 years, the campaign’s economic analysis estimates Measure S would support about 68,000 job-years — about 40,000 of them directly — and $5.1 billion in total wages.
- What happens to transit and road funding if Measure S fails?
Measure C ends June 30, 2027, either way. Without a replacement:
- The City of Fresno loses about $54 million a year and 217 city positions are at risk, including about $19 million and 93 jobs at Fresno Area Express, according to Mayor Jerry Dyer. Dyer said buses could stop running after 8 p.m., and routes that come every 30 minutes could come every 45 minutes to an hour.
- Clovis loses about $6.3 million a year and the rural transit agency about $4 million.
- County Public Works would lose $10 million to $13 million a year from its road fund. County staff listed layoffs “as a last resort”; Supervisor Luis Chavez said about 90 county jobs are at risk.
The City of Fresno has its own backstop on the ballot, Measure D, a half-cent general tax for the city’s general fund. It would end if Measure S or another countywide road tax passes; otherwise it would expire after 10 years.
Who supports Measure S?
- 11 of the county’s 15 mayors, including Republicans Jerry Dyer (Fresno), Vong Mouanoutoua (Clovis), Nathan Vosburg (Coalinga), Victor Martinez (Mendota), Alma Beltran (Parlier) and Freddy Valdez (Firebaugh). Ten of them voted for the plan at Fresno COG in December.
- Supervisor Luis Chavez
- Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, Jakara Movement, League of Women Voters of Fresno, Faith in the Valley, Cultiva La Salud, California Walks, Fresno Building Healthy Communities
- Sierra Club, NRDC Action Fund, California Environmental Voters, Fresno County Bicycle Coalition, Medical Advocates for Healthy Air
- North Coast States Carpenters Union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1027, SEIU Locals 521 and 2015, Fresno Teachers Association, California Nurses Association, Central Labor Council
- Central Valley Community Foundation
- Fresno Association of Realtors, Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce, Clovis Chamber of Commerce
- Streetsblog California
What are the arguments against Measure S?
Supervisor Garry Bredefeld, chair of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, called it “a scam” and “a public transportation tax disguised as a roads tax.”
Bredefeld says, falsely, that Measure S won’t touch the county’s road maintenance backlog. He also objects to the requirement for 120 miles of bike lanes to be built out across the county.
Many opponents worry that the accountability measure baked into Measure S will hurt growth. If local roads have to get fixed first and school routes get safer before new roads get built, opponents say, that would hamstring local governments who want to build new roads near the fringes of town, and thereby reduce some of the region’s economic dynamism.
Who opposes Measure S?
- Supervisors Garry Bredefeld, Nathan Magsig, and Buddy Mendes
- Clovis Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce, Reedley Mayor Matthew Tuttle
- Valley Watchdogs PAC chair and Brooke Ashjian and the Central Valley Young Republicans
- Former Fresno County Supervisor, California High-Speed Rail Authority Board Member and lobbyist Henry R. Perea
Who is funding the campaigns?
The Yes on S committee, Fresno County Residents for Better Roads and Safe Streets, reported that their top funders were the Central Valley Community Foundation, the North Coast States Regional Council of Carpenters and the Fund for a Better Future – a committee of the Resources Legacy Fund, which helps fund campaigns that make California communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
As of Oct. 2, Yes on Measure S has raised over $1.8 million, including $848,000 from the Central Valley Community Foundation.
| Central Valley Community Foundation | $848,097.88 |
| North Coast States Regional Council of Carpenters Issues PAC | $500,000 |
| Fund for a Better Future, Inc. | $150,000 |
| Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability | $88,061.46 |
| Fresno Building Healthy Communities | $51,499.49 |
| Accelerator for America Action, a national group focused on infrastructure and transit | $40,000 |
| Fresno City Employees Association PAC | $30,000 |
| Paul M. Gibson, farmer, philanthropist, and former co-owner of Guarantee Real Estate | $25,000 |
| Kathryn Taylor, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and wife of former gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer | $20,000 |
The Non on S Fresno County Committee has raised $10,000, as of Oct. 2, from retiring Supervisor Buddy Mendes’ campaign account and another $25,000 from contractor, developer and major Republican donor Richard Spencer. The Valley Red Wave PAC has also spent $596 in “No on S” signs across the county.
