James Corless Archives - Transportation For America

Transportation for America’s long-tenured director tapped to lead the Sacramento Area Council of Governments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2016

T4America’s James Corless will depart in 2017 to lead Sacramento’s pioneering metropolitan planning agency

James Corless headshot WASHINGTON, DC — After more than eight years as the director of Transportation for America, the only national non-profit coalition dedicated to smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions, James Corless has been selected by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) to become the agency’s new chief executive officer beginning in the spring of 2017.

James Corless will replace Mike McKeever as CEO, who is retiring at the end of this year after a long career helping SACOG become one of the most forward-looking metropolitan planning agencies in the country.

Upon his appointment, Corless made this statement:

I am honored to be given the opportunity to lead SACOG into its next chapter. From its work strengthening rural communities and preserving agricultural land to the progress promoting more walkable, transit-oriented, and compact development through the Sacramento Region Blueprint, on the ground success can be seen across the region. SACOG’s leadership and role as convener and collaborator is going to be critical in the years ahead in order to promote economic prosperity, innovation, and a high quality of life that will benefit each and every resident of the region.

James Corless has served as director of T4America since January 2009, steering the organization through numerous changes over the years and producing significant accomplishments. Since 2013, Corless has been the primary force behind building T4America’s strong national network of civic, elected, and business leaders who understand that smart, strategic investments in infrastructure are crucial for attracting economic development.

Under his leadership, T4America created an ongoing series of training academies aimed at helping local leaders of all stripes make their ambitious transportation plans a reality, helped launch the national Smart Cities Collaborative for municipalities looking to use technology to improve mobility options, and found ways to train and encourage dozens of regional planning agencies across the United States to implement data-driven decision-making to improve transparency and get more bang for the buck.

“While we will certainly miss James and the valuable leadership he has provided to this organization over the years, he built an incredibly strong foundation and catalyzed a movement of local leaders working hard to change the status quo; a movement that will long outlast his time at T4A,” said Geoff Anderson, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, of which T4America is a program. “He recruited passionate, talented people to come and work for us, and worked to show scores of state, metro and local agencies smarter ways to spend their transportation dollars. All of which makes it no surprise that an organization like SACOG with a terrific reputation of people-first planning would come looking for a leader like James.”

Corless will stay on as director of T4America through March 2017. We’ll be sharing additional information about his replacement over the coming months.

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Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity.

For any California-based inquiries, please contact Monica Hernández at SACOG
916-599-4568 / MHernandez@sacog.org

Massachusetts event highlights the growing trend of states moving to enable more local transportation funding

“Let the voters decide.” It’s a mantra we hear all the time in politics, but not quite as much in transportation. Yet that’s starting to change, as nearly a dozen states have taken steps to empower local communities with new or enhanced taxing authority for transportation over the last few years, putting the question directly in the hands of voters.

Update: (5:23 p.m.) WAMC radio story about the briefing is at the bottom of this post.

Like in Utah, where legislature moved in 2015 to increase the state’s gas tax, tie it to inflation, and then provide individual counties with the ability to go to the ballot to increase sales taxes to raise yet more dollars to invest in their local transportation priorities. Voters approved the 0.25% sales tax increase in ten of the 17 counties where it was on the ballot last November. And in Virginia, state legislators in 2014 created a new regional funding mechanism and boosted sales taxes in the state’s two biggest metro areas (Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) explicitly and only for transportation projects.

This growing movement of states taking action to empower local communities and put questions in the hands of the voters was the hot topic at a legislative briefing in the Massachusetts state capitol this morning, sponsored by a host of organizations including Transportation for Massachusetts and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

MA policy breakfast james corless mayor ballard 2

From left, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, MAPC executive director Marc Draisen, Former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, T4A Director James Corless (speaking), Pioneer Valley Planning Commission executive director Tim Brennan and Kristina Egan from Transportation for Massachusetts at this morning’s breakfast in the MA state capitol.

The briefing was in support of S1474 and H2698, bills in the Massachusetts legislature known as “enabling legislation” that would allow cities, towns or groups of cities new authority to raise one of four different sources of local taxes explicitly for local transportation projects.

Tracking state policy & funding

We are closely tracking this piece of state legislation and scores of others as part of our new resource on state transportation policy & funding. Visit our refreshed state policy bill tracker to see current information about the states attempting to raise new state or local funding in 2016, states attempting to reform how those dollars are spent, and states taking unfortunate steps in the wrong direction on policy.

T4America Director James Corless kicked off the discussion speaking to his own experience with ballot measures in California. “There is no better way of rebuilding the transportation brand with voters than asking them to tax themselves for projects and then delivering those projects and making good on that promise,” he explained.

In Indiana, the legislature acted in 2014 to change state law and allow metro Indianapolis counties to have a long-awaited vote on raising income taxes to fund an ambitious new public transportation network built around bus rapid transit.

Former Indy Mayor Greg Ballard, who told the Indy Star that he’d “been to the Statehouse more on [Indy’s enabling legislation] than any other issue,” was shared a local perspective this morning on how important it is for local cities to have more of a hand in deciding their own future and staying competitive.

“This is all about attracting talent…the local option transportation tax is a critical tool for mayors because, let’s face it, mayors know best what their most pressing transportation problems are,” Mayor Ballard said.

“When I became mayor we had one transit line on a map. We had no bigger, regional vision. What our local option tax has done is allow us to think big. So we now want to take seven new transit lines to the voters, and the local option tax made it possible to embrace such an ambitious vision. People used to move for a job now they move for a place – that’s why transportation and quality life is critical to make your economy competitive.”

The leaders of Massachusetts’ cities and towns are eager to put the question to voters. Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in the Boston metro area, said, “This bill sets a high bar — you have to let local voters decide on their own future…if they don’t like it, they will reject it.”

And the Mayor of Salem, Kim Driscoll, said that as things stand now without the legislation, it’s an uphill battle for cities like hers to invest in what they most need to stay competitive.

“The ability to connect people to places is critical. But for a place like Salem we simply don’t have the tools to invest in the projects that can make that happen,” she said. “This bill would unlock great ideas in the communities that really want it”

T4America director James Corless reminded everyone that the success of local cities and towns are intrinsic to the state’s economic prosperity.

“The best ideas are coming from cities and towns; empowering communities and promoting innovation is essential to a strong future.”

Updated 5:23 p.m. — WAMC Northeast Public Radio did a story about this morning’s briefing. Read or listen to the story here. An excerpt:

State Senator Ben Downing is sponsoring a bill to enable a community or group of municipalities to enact a tax to finance local transportation projects.

“This is a way to control much more directly how we raise and how we spend money for transportation,” Downing said. “It’s also a way to guarantee that the dollars that are raised will stay in the community where they are raised.”

…Transportation for America Director James Corless says since 2013 10 states have passed similar legislation. “In part they realize Congress is not going to come to their rescue anymore and increasingly even state capitals are broke,” said Corless.

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This story is part of the work of T4America’s START Network — State Transportation Advocacy, Research & Training — for state elected leaders and advocates working on similar state issues.

Find out more and join today.

Congress postpones insolvency, but uncertainty still plagues the Highway Trust Fund’s future

The last-minute patch to the Highway Trust Fund that Congress enacted on the way out the door last week delayed immediate insolvency, but it hardly ends the uncertainty for states or addresses our nation’s long-term prospects.

The House ultimately won the debate with the Senate over the length and funding source for the patch, using the controversial gimmick known as “pension smoothing” and temporarily postponing insolvency until next May. The Senate had passed a patch earlier in the week with enough money (but no pension smoothing) to carry the fund to the end of the year, which could have set the stage for a long-term solution in the lame-duck session.

“Congress is rapidly running out of last-minute budget gimmicks to patch holes in America’s key infrastructure fund, and must immediately begin the task of replacing pretend dollars with the real money necessary to continue to call ourselves a first-world nation,” said James Corless, T4America’s director, in our full statement released after final passage in the Senate. “In truth, they have bought themselves only a few short months to grapple with an issue they have delayed for years.”

Without this patch, the U.S. Department of Transportation was just days away from beginning to slash reimbursements to states for their current projects. However, with only ten months of full funding promised — if it stretches that far — some states are still shelving projects. Take, Tennessee, for example:

“Because of the uncertainty concerning the future of the Highway Trust Fund, the department took a conservative approach with the projects in this year’s three year transportation improvement program,” said Tennessee Department of Transportation’s Jennifer Flynn in a story yesterday about projects still being delayed there, despite last week’s action. “The most recent program included no new construction starts, and there were many projects throughout the state that did not move forward based on available funding.”

Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has been pushing Congress for a long-term funding solution almost since his tenure began as Secretary.

“The good news is that Congress has avoided bankrupting the Highway Trust Fund,” Secretary Foxx said in his news release following the vote. “The bad news is that there is still no long-term certainty, and this latest Band-Aid expires right as the next construction season begins.”

So what happens next? Assuming Congress punts on the issue during the lame-duck period, a lot could be determined by the political makeup of the next Congress May, as well as other big issues early in the next Congress, including raising the debt ceiling again.

Last week, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) found 28 fellow Republicans who would vote to defund the nation’s transportation system except for a small Interstate maintenance fund, and leave it to states to make up for the lost funding.

It would be a massive hole to fill for states and localities. Many already are struggling to raise additional revenue to make ends meet while Congress continues kicking the can down the road. Would they have the ability or political will to raise the equivalent of millions (or billions) in lost federal revenue? And what would happen to our country if the feds walked away from the national interest in our transportation system that spans multiple modes, state borders and moves goods and people across jurisdictional boundaries every day?

Other GOP members appeared to have grave doubts about such a strategy, and instead argued forcefully for shoring up the program for the long haul.

We believe most Americans would prefer to see our nation continue to make first-world levels of investment in our infrastructure – particularly if more of it comes to their communities to solve their local issues and address their priorities. That’s why we’re fighting for a long-term funding solution that gives local communities more resources and latitude, while ensuring that our bridges, roads and transit networks remain strong and safe across the nation.

T4America statement in support of Senate proposal to rescue the federal transportation program with a 12-cent gas tax increase

James Corless, director of Transportation for America, issued this statement in response to the proposal from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) to save the highway trust fund from insolvency and restore stable funding through a 12-cent gas tax increase over two years:

“Our nation’s key infrastructure fund is rushing toward insolvency. Proposed short-term patches using accounting gimmicks have been all but shot down in both houses. Senators Murphy and Corker are showing real leadership – as well as concern for their constituents’ jobs and safety – by championing a long-term solution that recognizes the gravity of the situation and addresses it head-on.

A return to stable funding will ensure that our states and communities can repair aging roads, bridges and transit systems and build the infrastructure we need for a growing economy. The alternative is to allow our transportation system to crumble along with an economy hobbled by crapshoot commutes and clogged freight corridors.

Phasing in the gas tax increase over two years along with extended tax breaks will ease the transition for consumers, just as the ensuing investment in a sound, working transportation network will ease travel for workers and businesses alike.”

T4 America will address Senate panel on senior transit access

Transportation for America Director James Corless will testify before a key Senate panel this week about the need for better and expanded transit options for seniors.

The Wednesday hearing of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development comes on the heels of T4 America’s recent finding that 15.5 million older Americans will live in communities with poor or non-existent public transit by 2015. Aging in Place, Stuck without Options, was covered in dozens of states and generated widespread discussion.

The chairman of Senate Banking, South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson, has already shone a spotlight on senior transit needs, particularly in sparser communities like those in his home state. The subcommittee is chaired by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, who has consistently championed transportation options and investment in mass transit.

According to an E&E report on the hearing, Corless will be joined by Lee Hammond, president of AARP, Steve Fittante, executive director of Middlesex County Area Transit in Menendez’s hometstate of New Jersey and Mary Leavy, assistant vice president of the Easter Seals Transportation Group.

The top Republican on the Subcommittee, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, invited Cato Institute fellow Randal O’Toole, who has made his views on senior transit access abundantly clear: “so what?” As Jason Plautz reported in E&E this morning:

O’Toole published a blog post questioning the report, noting data from the American Public Transportation Association that found that 6.7 percent of transit trips are taken by seniors.

“Those baby boomers who prefer transit over driving can do what everyone else does who prefers one set of services over another: locate to where the services they prefer are the greatest. In the case of transit riders, that generally means dense central cities,” O’Toole said, accusing Transportation for America of being “largely a shill for the transit industry.”

You can read T4’s response to O’Toole here.

The hearing will commence Wednesday, June 29 at 2pm in Room 548 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building. We’ll have a wrap on the hearing here.