Fresno County’s transportation tax heads toward 2026 ballot with competing visions

Fresno County’s half-cent transportation sales tax expires June 2027. What replaces it — if anything — is now the subject of two competing proposals headed toward the 2026 ballot.

The Fresno Council of Governments Policy Board approved one plan November 20, 2025. A separate group calling itself the Transportation Team is advancing an alternative. Both would ask voters to extend the tax. They differ sharply on where the money goes.

The current Measure C, passed in 2006, splits funding 35.4% to regional projects like highway widening. The FCOG-approved plan cuts that to 4%. The Transportation Team’s alternative allocates 17%.

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The FCOG plan shifts money toward local road maintenance and transit. It also caps spending on road expansions at 5% of any agency’s allocation — meaning the County would need other funding sources for projects that add lanes or capacity.

The Transportation Team’s plan keeps more money flowing to regional projects and eases that restriction. As of the December 9 Board of Supervisors meeting, the group had not filed petition signatures to put its version on the ballot independently.

The Breakdown

• Measure C is a half-cent sales tax for transportation, expiring June 2027.
• The FCOG Policy Board (mayors plus one county supervisor) approved an expenditure plan November 20 allocating 4% to regional projects, the rest to local streets and transit.
• That plan also caps road expansion spending at 5% per agency and shifts the funding formula from 75% population/25% road miles to 80/20.
• The Transportation Team’s alternative allocates 17% to regional projects, including 2% for “new technologies,” and uses a 78/22 population/road-miles split.
• The FCOG plan requires two-thirds voter approval to pass. A citizen-led initiative like the Transportation Team’s would need 22,000 valid signatures to reach the ballot, then only a simple majority to pass.
• If Measure C expires, the County loses nearly $10 million annually in road maintenance funding and faces additional transit cost increases.

What This Means for You

You’ll vote on this in 2026. The version that reaches the ballot determines what your sales-tax money pays for — whether it goes toward fixing the street in front of your house, widening a highway connector between cities, or subsidizing the bus system.

The FCOG version puts more money toward maintenance you see locally and less toward regional projects that ease cross-county commutes. The Transportation Team version keeps more money available for highway and capacity projects. If competing measures both make the ballot, you could face a choice between them — or both could fail and the tax could expire entirely, leaving a $10 million annual hole in the County’s road budget.

What You Can Do

The FCOG Policy Board meets December 18, 2025 to consider the full Expenditure Plan and Implementation Guidelines. Public comment is available at FCOG meetings. The County Board of Supervisors must approve any measure before it reaches the ballot — public comment is available at their meetings as well. If the Transportation Team files a citizen initiative, watch for signature gatherers and decide whether to sign.

What to Watch

The County received $78 million under the current Measure C for widening Academy Avenue, Friant Road, and Mountain View Avenue. Under the FCOG plan’s 4% regional allocation and 5% expansion cap, projects like that wouldn’t happen again without finding other funding sources. Is that the right trade-off — better-maintained streets in exchange for no new highway capacity — or does it lock in today’s congestion patterns for another 20 years?

The two-thirds threshold is the real test. The last Measure C renewal attempt in 2022 got 58.2% yes votes and failed. If the FCOG plan is too restrictive, it could fail again. If the Transportation Team files a competing measure requiring only a simple majority, that’s the easier path to passage — but also the one that splits the vote and risks both losing.

Either way, if this tax expires, the County’s $10 million annual shortfall doesn’t fix itself. Watch whether the Board of Supervisors treats that as a real threat or a negotiating tactic to pressure cities into accepting one plan over the other.