Transportation is a Public Safety Priority
When people think about public safety, the conversation often focuses exclusively on emergency personnel and law enforcement. But true community safety begins much earlier, in the design of our neighborhoods.
Safety is whether a child can walk to their neighborhood school without having to dodge speeding traffic on an unpaved shoulder. It is whether a senior can navigate an electric wheelchair to a bus stop without getting stuck or falling on cracked, buckled concrete. It is whether paramedics can navigate neighborhood streets swiftly when every second counts, and whether our foothill communities have clear, maintained evacuation corridors when wildfire season strikes.
Decades of underinvestment and deferred maintenance have left deep marks on Fresno County’s transportation grid. Neighborhoods across Fresno, unincorporated rural communities in the Central Valley, and growing cities across our region face uneven infrastructure quality, missing sidewalks, and dangerous pedestrian crossings.
Measure S offers a comprehensive path forward. By extending Fresno County’s existing dedicated half-cent transportation fund for 30 years without raising the local sales tax rate, the initiative is projected to deliver approximately $113 million annually for local infrastructure. From a public health and safety perspective, Measure S represents an essential blueprint to protect lives, prevent injuries, and build a safer environment across our valley.
Protecting Our Children With 150 Safe Routes to School
Motor vehicle accidents and pedestrian injuries remain among the leading causes of preventable harm to school-aged children. In Fresno County, too many students must navigate daily routes with high vehicle speeds, missing crosswalks, and poorly lit intersections.
Measure S places youth and school safety at the center of its infrastructure plan, committing to 150 Safe Routes to School projects across the county.
- High-visibility crosswalks and modern signals: Installing flashing beacons, pedestrian countdown signals, and clearly marked crosswalks near school zones.
- Traffic calming near campuses: Implementing curb extensions, speed tables, and roadway narrowing that naturally reduce vehicle speeds where children gather.
- Closing sidewalk gaps: Ensuring continuous paved walkways from surrounding residential streets straight to campus gates, preventing students from walking alongside moving traffic.
When streets around schools are designed for safety, children are empowered to walk and bike without fear.
Walkable Neighborhoods and 120 Miles of Trails
In many older Fresno neighborhoods and rural county pockets, sidewalks simply vanish mid-block, forcing parents pushing strollers or residents using mobility devices into traffic lanes.
Measure S establishes a clear priority to repair and construct missing sidewalks and fix broken pavement in existing residential communities. Beyond sidewalks, the plan funds the maintenance and construction of 120 miles of new bike and pedestrian trails across Fresno County.
This multi-modal infrastructure addresses safety through several vital layers:
- Upgraded intersections and lighting: Adding modern LED street lighting and responsive traffic signals counters the danger of nighttime collisions, which disproportionately affect vulnerable pedestrians.
- Separated active transit corridors: Creating separated, off-street paths allows cyclists and pedestrians to travel to work, medical appointments, and parks completely protected from high-speed vehicular traffic.
- ADA-compliant accessibility: Ensuring curb ramps and sidewalk pathways comply with accessibility standards so disabled community members and seniors can move freely without risk of injury.
Designing streets that prioritize vulnerable road users aligns with proven public health principles, recognizing that streets must serve everyone who uses them, not just motor vehicles.
Enhancing Emergency Response and Climate Evacuation Routes
When a medical crisis, fire, or domestic emergency occurs, seconds matter. Emergency vehicle response times are closely tied to the quality and connectivity of local roads. Potholes, unmaintained surfaces, and mismanaged signal systems cause vehicle wear and tear and slow down ambulances, fire engines, and first responders.
Under Measure S, local roadway repairs are directed toward critical arterials and neighborhood connectors, smoothing corridors essential for emergency dispatch. Modernized traffic signal coordination allows emergency vehicles to navigate heavily traveled intersections more swiftly and safely.
Foothill and rural communities throughout Fresno County face heightened wildfire risks during hot, dry summer months. Measure S designates funding to improve regional evacuation routes, ensuring rural and mountain communities have reliable and maintained roadways when evacuation orders are issued.
Public Transit Safety
Public transit is an indispensable lifeline for thousands of Fresno County families who rely on buses to reach healthcare clinics, community colleges, grocery stores, and job centers. Yet when transit stops lack shelter, lighting, or ADA accessibility, waiting for the bus becomes a safety hazard, especially during triple-digit summer heat or dark winter evenings.
Measure S guarantees major transit safety and accessibility upgrades:
- Shelter and stop enhancements: Upgrading transit stops across the county with secure, shaded, and well-lit bus shelters and ADA-accessible boarding pads.
- Expanded on-demand transit: Enhancing on-demand and micro-transit services, reducing wait times and bridging the “first-mile, last-mile” gap in underserved areas where fixed-route buses run infrequently.
- Zero fares for vulnerable riders: Eliminating bus fares for students, seniors (62+), veterans, active-duty military, and people with disabilities.
Better public transit ensures students can always secure a safe ride home from school or extracurricular activities, keeps seniors connected to medical appointments without driving on congested roads, and gets people where they need to go safely and quickly.
Transparent and Accountable Stewardship
Decades of infrastructure policy have taught community advocates that how money is managed matters as much as how much money is raised. Far too often, public resources flow disproportionately to brand-new outlying developments while core, established neighborhoods remain neglected.
Measure S incorporates explicit oversight provisions to prevent historical disparities:
- Prioritizing areas of highest need: The framework mandates that road and safety dollars prioritize neighborhoods with the poorest road conditions, the most severe pothole backlogs, and the fewest existing transportation choices.
- Citizen Oversight Committee: All spending is subject to review by an independent Citizen Oversight Committee with mandatory annual independent audits.
- Public transparency: The measure requires a publicly searchable expenditure database, ensuring community members can track project progress down to specific neighborhood streets.
- Protected local dollars: Funds are legally protected under local control, preventing the State Legislature or external agencies from reallocating local transportation dollars to other programs.
A Safer Transportation Future for All
At Fresno Building Healthy Communities, we believe that every resident deserves to live in a neighborhood that protects their physical safety. By fixing potholes, installing missing sidewalks, securing 150 Safe Routes to School, expanding bicycle trails, speeding emergency response, and modernizing transit, Measure S addresses longstanding structural safety hazards across Fresno County.
Investing in our streets means investing in our families, ensuring that every community in our valley is connected, protected, and built to thrive for generations to come.
To learn more about Measure S, visit www.voteyesons.com.
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