Matt Click, executive director of the Placer County Transportation Planning Agency (PCTPA), has had the same conversation in Sacramento more times than he can count. PCTPA's executive director shows up asking for state and federal transportation dollars, and the answer comes back as a question: what is Placer County doing to invest in itself?
"LA is helping themselves. Orange County is helping themselves. San Francisco is helping themselves," Click said. "They ask: You're the fastest-growing county in California per capita. Why didn't you vote for this?"
The "this" is Measure B, a 2024 county sales tax measure dedicated to transportation projects. It received 64 percent voter support, a clear majority, but fell short of the two-thirds threshold California requires for these measures to pass.
"I don't think it failed and I don't think the voters rejected it," Click said. "It's the vast majority of people who were, in a sense, disenfranchised by a very vocal minority who didn't want more taxes."
That minority's concerns about affordability are valid. However, while a 36 percent “no” vote cannot be read as the county's prioritization of the issue, the practical effect is the same.
“Placer is now among the largest counties in California without a dedicated local transportation funding measure.”
Had Measure B passed, it was projected to generate roughly $45 million in its first year. Placer is now among the largest counties in California without a dedicated local transportation funding measure, a tool more than half of California counties rely on, both to fund projects directly and to provide the local match that most state and federal grant programs require before they will consider an application. Every grant application Placer submits starts from behind.
PCTPA's response is what Click calls "the Pivot": leaning on developer impact fees, which generate roughly $7 million a year against the $45 million the sales tax would have produced, and pursuing competitive state and federal grants aggressively enough to close the gap.
It is working, to a point. PCTPA secured a $23 million federal BUILD grant earlier this year to add a southbound lane on State Route 65 between Blue Oaks and Galleria. This was the only BUILD award issued in California that cycle, selected from a national pool of over 800 applicants with a 4 percent win rate.
But a grant win does not solve everything a sales tax measure would have.
A dedicated local tax would have given PCTPA bonding authority, the ability to borrow against future revenue to advance construction before inflation drives up costs. Grants do not offer that, and PCTPA is now exploring other funding models, including options like toll lanes, to fill the gap a local measure would have closed.
None of this is abstract for the businesses operating in the corridor. Logistics companies weigh whether they can reliably move goods through a corridor before deciding to locate there. Retailers depend on whether shoppers are willing to sit in traffic to reach them. As more of those decisions accumulate, they begin to shape which communities stay competitive for jobs and investment.
This cannot be solved by PCTPA alone.
Public agencies can plan, fund, and deliver transportation projects, but they cannot do it without a robust private sector working alongside them. Placer's transportation funding gap is not just a budget problem for one agency. It is a cost the county's employers and developers are already absorbing, one slower commute and one deferred decision at a time.