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Our Capital Ideas state policy conference is kicking off this morning in Sacramento

This morning, representatives from all over the country are gathered in Sacramento, California to learn how states can raise new money to invest in transportation — and change the underlying policies to ensure those dollars are better spent.

Capital Ideas wide shot Geoff

Our second Capital Ideas conference, getting underway in Sacramento this morning, is bringing together business leaders, legislators, local elected leaders, advocates and others who are focused on advancing creative and innovative transportation funding and policy reforms to make the most of limited infrastructure dollars.

We’ve got an incredible agenda over the next two days that in truth goes far beyond just state transportation legislation. For example, we expect a lot of interest in a breakout session on how California dumped the city-killing 1950’s level-of-service engineering metric — a policy change actually made at the administrative level in CA. We’ll have a couple experts from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research explaining how they made that incredibly important change — and how other states can replicate it.

Wherever you are, follow along on social media as well throughout Wednesday and Thursday. We’ll be tweeting from @t4america, and follow the #CapIdeas hashtag to hear what participants are learning. We’ll also be posting sporadically to Facebook and our Flickr account.

Why Capital Ideas and why state policy?

State leadership on transportation issues is more important than ever.

One thing that the five-year federal FAST Act transportation authorization didn’t change about the federal program is that it’s still largely a block grant given to and controlled by the states. And that’s one critical reason we’re here in Sacramento for the next two days — state-level reform is essential to advance creative and innovative transportation funding and policy reforms to make the most of limited infrastructure dollars.

Will state legislators and policymakers continue pumping scarce dollars into a complex and opaque system designed to spend funds based more on politics than needs? Or will they revise their policies to expand transparency and accountability, boost state and local economies, invest in innovation across the state, save the state money and improve safety for the traveling public?

Our hope is that these next two days at Capital Ideas will equip yet more local and state leaders to help their states take a different path when faced with dwindling transportation revenues or outdated, 1950’s policies that are ill-equipped to actually solving the complicated, multimodal challenges that local communities face today.

From the Director

James Corless headshotWe had no idea what to expect when we held the very first Capital Ideas conference two years ago. But it felt like the start of something big as business leaders, legislators, local elected leaders, advocates and others from 30 states came together in Denver to learn how states can raise money for smart, 21st century investments in transportation. In sharp contrast with the disappointing federal transportation bill that had just passed back in 2012, the impressive collection of leaders in the room spoke to the tantalizing possibilities at the state level to actually get important things done in the years to come.

We were energized by the discussions that happened two years ago, and we expect nothing less here in 2016.

James Corless
Director, T4America