From Infrastructure Priorities to Delivery
California’s infrastructure priorities span transportation, water, energy, ports, airports, and civic facilities. Moving them forward takes clear priorities, funding and partnerships that fit each project, and delivery decisions that account for community needs and long term performance.
The 2026 California Infrastructure Development Conference brings public agency leaders and industry partners together to examine those decisions. Across five themes, featured sessions draw on agency experience and California projects to explore how to coordinate systems, mobilize capital, deliver complex projects, create lasting public value, and build resilient infrastructure.
What will it take to turn California’s infrastructure priorities into projects that are funded, delivered, and ready to serve communities for generations?
The program follows the decisions public owners face, from planning and preparing projects to funding them and structuring partnerships, through procurement and delivery, with dedicated themes for community value and for modernizing essential infrastructure.
Select a theme to jump to its sessions. The 2026 agenda is still taking shape, and new sessions will be added to every theme in the coming weeks.
How agencies set priorities, define project needs, and address planning and environmental review.
California mayors will discuss how they set priorities and move major capital programs forward amid budget constraints, competing community needs, and political pressure. The conversation will explore coordination across agencies, public trust, and ways to deliver visible benefits to residents.
Leaders from rail agencies will discuss the coordination required to advance major rail programs. Topics will include project interfaces, station connections, funding, sequencing, and the challenges of delivering a connected statewide rail network.
Pier 500 is a proposed marine container terminal at the Port of Los Angeles. The session will examine how the project is being advanced through predevelopment, including the financial, entitlement, procurement, and partnership questions that must be addressed before construction.
Hayward is exploring a new Public Safety Center, with early work focused on facility and site planning. City leaders will discuss how they are defining operational needs and evaluating the steps required to advance the project.
California’s infrastructure ambitions increasingly intersect with the realities of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a landmark law that continues to shape how projects are planned, reviewed, and delivered. This session brings together CEQA practitioners, public agency representatives, and attorneys to examine infrastructure challenges through the lens of environmental review and regulatory reform.
Panelists will discuss recent CEQA amendments and carve-outs, their implications for transportation, housing, and water projects, and how agencies and developers can navigate compliance while advancing delivery. Attendees will gain insight into how CEQA is evolving to balance environmental stewardship with the need for infrastructure across the state.
How public funding, private capital, and partnership models can support projects.
Public agencies will discuss how to identify and combine federal, state, local, and private funding for infrastructure projects. The panel will focus on aligning funding plans with project readiness, delivery strategy, and long term operating needs.
San Francisco’s Potrero Yard project pairs modernization of a major transit facility with affordable housing and other community uses. Project leaders will discuss how they are coordinating transportation, development, financing, procurement, and community priorities in a dense urban setting.
Data centers increasingly depend on reliable fiber, clean power, and significant energy capacity. This panel will explore how public private partnerships could help deliver digital infrastructure alongside local economic development, community benefits, and more resilient energy systems.
University of California leaders will discuss how fee development contracts, lease leaseback arrangements, and other delivery models support projects across the UC system.
How owners select delivery models, manage project challenges, and keep work moving.
Public owners will share practical lessons from using progressive design build, including when the approach is a good fit, how teams build cost certainty, and how they manage risk during preconstruction. The discussion will cover what has worked, what has been difficult, and what owners would change on future projects.
This session will examine how Los Angeles County used an innovative delivery and financing approach for its Vermont Corridor campus project. Speakers will share lessons on the project structure, schedule and cost outcomes, and where similar approaches could help other public agencies deliver complex facilities.
Collaborative delivery can improve project outcomes, but teams may still encounter cost and schedule pressures, stakeholder conflicts, or difficulty reaching agreement. In this interactive session, participants will work through a California infrastructure project scenario, make decisions as conditions change, and compare approaches with experienced public owners and industry leaders. The discussion will identify why projects stall, how teams can address problems earlier, and what agencies and partners can do to keep future projects moving.
Public agencies across California are advancing complex infrastructure programs amid funding constraints, schedule pressures, and growing coordination demands. Project leaders will discuss how they move projects from planning into construction, structure procurement and funding, coordinate across agencies and communities, and respond to risks as conditions change. The conversation will draw practical lessons from transit, public safety, and other civic infrastructure projects to help agencies make informed decisions and deliver more predictable outcomes.
How infrastructure investment supports mobility, local opportunity, and regional growth.
Owners and project partners will discuss how small business participation, community engagement, and workforce strategies can be built into project delivery from the start. Speakers will share approaches that support project outcomes while creating meaningful local benefits.
Transit oriented development can connect transportation investment with housing, jobs, and community amenities, while raising difficult questions about affordability, displacement, access, and public value. California owners and development partners will discuss how to balance these priorities when planning and delivering projects near transit.
As the region prepares for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, transportation projects must serve both event operations and long term community needs. Using the Inglewood Transit Connector as a case study, project leaders will discuss plans for mobility hubs, a pedestrian connection to the Metro K Line, streetscape improvements, and dedicated event day bus lanes. The panel will explore funding, delivery, and coordination among public agencies and venues, as well as how these investments can improve mobility and benefit Inglewood and Southern California after the Games.
How California can improve critical systems and prepare for changing needs.
Port leaders will discuss how ports are expanding capacity, modernizing infrastructure, improving freight connections, and reducing emissions while working with neighboring communities.
California’s water agencies face growing pressure to strengthen supply reliability amid drought, climate change, aging infrastructure, and changing regional demands. Leaders will discuss long term supply strategies, including storage, water reuse, desalination, Colorado River planning, and the financing and partnerships needed to advance major projects.
The growth of artificial intelligence and data centers is increasing demand for reliable power, grid capacity, water, and suitable sites. Public and private sector leaders will discuss how California can plan for this infrastructure while weighing economic development, utility costs, community impacts, and long term resource needs.
Join public agency executives, public works leaders, planners, engineers, finance officials, and industry partners in Los Angeles this December.
This is an early look at the 2026 program. Additional sessions and speakers will be announced as the agenda is finalized, and titles and descriptions are subject to change.
Exhibit at the Conference
Meet public agency leaders, infrastructure owners, developers and decision-makers face to face. Exhibit spaces sit in the conference’s networking areas, with registration passes and attendee list access included.
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