Connector JPA

Connector JPA The Southeast Connector is a transportation corridor that connects Interstate 5 to Highways 99 and 50 through Sacramento and El Dorado Counties

Shaping the future of transportation infrastructure, the Connector JPA oversees the development of Sacramento's vital 34-mile, 4-lane, SouthEast Connector Expressway. This innovative project will streamline travel between the Sacramento region, including Elk Grove, Folsom, and Rancho Cordova, boosting economic growth and enhancing community connectivity.

09/03/2026

Full roads. Half empty trains. The pattern is not an accident.

Travel demand stopped being aggregated a long time ago. People want to go from their point to their point, in their own vehicle, on their own schedule. The infrastructure did not follow.

The answer is not another vehicle added to the roadway. It is moving that trip off the road entirely and into a dedicated guideway that costs less to build than a highway widening.

Growth in the Bay Area is heading east. Meeting it means new lanes of a different kind, since the freeways have no room left to give.
Guest: Mariah Ray, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Glydways

Hear from government and public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision makers, development managers, and more who are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels
Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title: Taking Traffic Off the Road Instead of Adding to It

09/02/2026

Cost per mile is where most transit proposals live or die.

Figures cited for Glydways during the conversation: roughly 30 to 50 million dollars per mile for a mostly at grade system in East Contra Costa County, and 130 to 150 million per mile for a majority elevated build in San Jose.

The company attributes the low cost to what gets poured. Concrete and asphalt guideway instead of steel. A vehicle at 5,000 pounds fully loaded, which puts the load bearing requirements closer to elevated pedestrian or bike infrastructure than to heavy rail.

Different build, different order of magnitude.

Guest: Mariah Ray, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Glydways
Hear from government and public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision makers, development managers, and more who are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels

Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title: Why a 5,000-Pound Vehicle Changes What You Have to Build

09/01/2026

Most transit rides are subsidized before a passenger ever boards.

That one fact sits underneath almost every funding fight in the sector. These are long haul, long tail projects, and fare revenue was never built to carry the operating cost.

The alternative described here reverses the order. A vehicle stays parked until a paying rider requests it, so the cost of deployment lands at the same moment the revenue does. With enough ridership, the argument goes, the system moves toward an operating profit rather than an operating subsidy.

Unit economics does not come up often in transit rooms. It probably should.

Guest: Mariah Ray, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Glydways

Hear from government and public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision makers, development managers, and more who are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels

Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title: Why Every Public Transit Ride You Take Loses Money

09/01/2026

The work behind regional transportation progress continues. 🚧

Missed the board meeting? Board reports and meeting materials are available on our website, making it easier to stay informed and follow the JPA projects.

đź“„ Explore the August Board Meeting reports and materials at ConnectorJPA.com/Board.
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Follow the road ahead! 🛣️ sign up for more updates on ConnectorJPA.com ✅

08/31/2026

Buses run half empty. Freeways run full.

That gap is the entire argument for automated transit networks.

Glydways runs small autonomous vehicles on dedicated guideway with offline stations. A rider hails a vehicle the way they would hail an Uber or Lyft, gets directed to a numbered platform, and travels straight through to the destination station without stopping at anything in between. The vehicles carry the same camera, radar, lidar and compute found in an autonomous vehicle like Waymo, operating on a closed guideway rather than open roads.

The cost picture is where the case gets more interesting.

East Contra Costa County pencils out at roughly 30 to 50 million dollars per mile for a mostly at grade system, according to Glydways. Set against that, the company points to a BART tunnel project north of 13 billion dollars for six to seven miles.

The operating math carries just as much weight. A vehicle does not move until a fare paying rider is attached to it. At sufficient ridership, that structure is designed to produce an operating profit instead of an operating subsidy, which inverts how most agencies budget today.

The argument is not that heavy rail goes away. It is that the old unit economics stop working unless ridership returns to levels almost nobody is forecasting.
Traffic does not get another vehicle added to the road. It gets moved off the road entirely.

Link below.

Guest: Mariah Ray, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Glydways

Hear from government and public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision makers, development managers, and more who are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels

Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title : Transit That Never Stops

08/29/2026

Infrastructure only gets attention when it stops working. Lights, water, roads. When it runs, it's invisible.

Meanwhile SB 1 revenue keeps shrinking as vehicles get more fuel efficient and the fleet moves toward zero emission. Project costs move the other direction. Wait longer, pay more.

Funding a project on the front end matters. Funding it all the way through matters just as much.

Generating new revenue at the state and local level is the harder puzzle, especially with an electorate that has little appetite for new taxes right now.

On the federal side, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is expiring. It sent $54 billion to California over five years and funded close to every project type the state needed, according to the commission's vice chair.

What's wanted next: a ten year funding horizon instead of five, plus flexibility to move dollars as priorities shift.

Ten years is what it takes to actually build the big ones.

Link below.

Guest: Joe Cruz, Executive Director of CALIFORNIA STATE COUNCIL OF LABORERS & Vice Chair of California Transportation Commission

Hear from government and public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision makers, development managers, and more who are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels

Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title: The Funding Cliff: What California Needs From the Next Federal Infrastructure Bill

08/28/2026

Joe Cruz almost became a high school teacher and coach. Somebody talked him out of it, and the Capitol steps became the next stop instead.

The career that followed came together one opportunity at a time. A young staffer working through a run of Assembly speakers. A conversation on a trip to DC with a mentor who mentioned an organization called the Alliance for Jobs. A few months later, an offer that was never part of the plan.

Eleven years there, representing construction unions alongside the contractors who hire them, promoting projects and generating funding for large scale infrastructure across California. Good work, though it meant sitting outside the room where the decisions get made. The pull of the Capitol won out, and the return came as a lobbyist for the laborers.

The Commission seat was never the goal either. A predecessor retired, leadership needed someone who understood transportation, and the answer was next man up.

Appointed by Governor Newsom, now serving as Vice Chair. The highlight of the role has little to do with the funding decisions themselves. It is traveling the state, standing on a site, and watching a project finally go in the ground.

Full conversation available now.

Guest: Joe Cruz, Executive Director of CALIFORNIA STATE COUNCIL OF LABORERS & Vice Chair of California Transportation Commission

Hear from government/public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision-makers, development managers, & more that are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and Subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at : https://www.connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels

Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title: How Joe Cruz Landed on the California Transportation Commission

08/27/2026

In 2008 high speed rail was on the ballot with zero money behind it and almost nobody giving it a chance.

Then a poll came back. It was testing funding scenarios statewide, and high speed rail happened to be one of the questions. The number said the thing could actually pass. Somebody walked it over to Joe Cruz's boss at the California Alliance for Jobs and said take a look at this.

That's the origin story.

Seventeen years later the conversation is all about why it's late.

Joe's answer is that mismanagement is the easy version.

Right of way is the real one. Roughly 2,000 parcels had to be acquired, and anyone who works in this space knows what that means.

"I'm all in." he says.

Not because of what it does for him, but because his kids and grandkids might get from Sacramento or San Francisco to LA in two and a half hours.

Full conversation with Joe is up now.

Guest: Joe Cruz, Executive Director of CALIFORNIA STATE COUNCIL OF LABORERS & Vice Chair of California Transportation Commission

Hear from government/public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision-makers, development managers, & more that are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and Subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at : https://www.connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels

Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title : 2,000 Parcels: The Real Story Behind High-Speed Rail's Delays

đź“Ł Be part of the conversation!Our next Board Meeting takes place tomorrow on Friday, August 28th, at 8:30 a.m. at Rancho...
08/27/2026

đź“Ł Be part of the conversation!

Our next Board Meeting takes place tomorrow on Friday, August 28th, at 8:30 a.m. at Rancho Cordova City Hall. Come hear the latest project updates, learn what's on the horizon, and stay connected with the future of regional transportation. See you there!

Check out full board meeting details and more on https://www.connectorjpa.com/board
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Follow the road ahead! 🛣️ sign up for more updates on ConnectorJPA.com ✅

08/24/2026

75,000 members across California. That number usually gets quoted as a measure of size or political weight.

Joseph Cruz frames it differently. The Laborers are the front line of heavy construction, the Marines of the industry, first ones on the job and last ones to leave. But the part that keeps coming up isn't the work itself. It's who gets access to it.

CALIFORNIA STATE COUNCIL OF LABORERS is the largest union organization in the state opening doors for people of color, women, and the formerly incarcerated. The standard is simple. Show up on time, work hard, take direction, and there's a path to the middle class on the other side. A pension. Health care. A house. A car. A way to provide for a family.

And it isn't just the Laborers. Carpenters, IBEW, plumbers, all of it. An entire industry offering a good living to people who don't take the higher education route.

Joe Cruz explains it better.

Full episode linked below.

Guest: Joe Cruz, Executive Director at CALIFORNIA STATE COUNCIL OF LABORERS & Vice Chair of California Transportation Commission

Hear from government and public sector leaders, transportation executives, funding decision makers, development managers, and more who are shaping our industry.

Watch more of the Between Two Shovels show and subscribe to our Connector JPA project updates email list at connectorjpa.com/between-two-shovels

Between Two Shovels is produced by the Capital SouthEast Connector Joint Powers Authority and explores transportation policy, engineering, and project delivery through conversations with industry leaders.

Title: 75,000 Members Strong: Inside California's Largest Construction Union (Building the Middle Class, One Job at a Time)

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