By Brian Hews
For the first time in the long history of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority an elected official from the City of Lakewood has been tapped to lead the agency.
Lakewood Mayor Diane DuBois was elected to become the chair of the powerful LAC MTA by a vote of its directors last month.
DuBois will continue to serve as a Lakewood council member during her one-year term as MTA chair.
“I’m excited and look forward to a successful year as chair,” said DuBois. “We will concentrate on continuing to design and implement Measure R projects and growing the transportation opportunities in Los Angeles County for accessibility to all corners of the region.”
“I’m really proud for Diane,” said Lakewood Mayor Steve Croft, “and I’m proud for Lakewood and our region. It’s the first time ever that a representative from Lakewood or any of our Gateway Region cities has been the MTA board chair. I think her MTA colleagues found out what Lakewood residents and council members have known for a long time—that Diane is intelligent, cares about people and good public policy, and is great to work with.”
MTA is the third largest public transportation agency in the United States, operating six subway and light-rail lines and 191 bus routes (with 2,200 buses) spread across the vast reaches of L.A. County. MTA does all this work with more than 9,000 employees.
DuBois will help guide a 13-member voting board of directors that is composed of the five Los Angeles County Supervisors, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Duarte Councilman John Fasana, Glendale Councilman Ara Najarian, Santa Monica Mayor Pam O’Connor, Los Angeles Councilman Paul Krekorian, Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin, and City of Los Angeles Appointee Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker.
In 2009, DuBois was selected to be the MTA representative from the Gateway Cities area of southeastern L.A. County that covers a wide swatch of municipalities.
“We need to get people off of the freeways and onto the trains,” DuBois said during a meeting of the MTA Board on July 25th.
