Reelected to MTA Board, O'Connor Vows to Keep Expo-rail on Track

By Oliver Lukacs

Jan. 14 -- Council member Pam O'Connor was unanimously reelected Monday night to a four-year term on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, where championing the much-anticipated Expo-rail is a "personal priority."

O'Connor faced no opposition in her bid to represent the 18 cities from the Westside and the South Bay on the 13-member board, which oversees the agency that plans, coordinates, designs, builds and operates the transit system for one of the nation's largest counties.

A frequent bus rider and champion of public transportation, O'Connor was voted in by elected members of the region to fill one of four seats set aside to represent the 88 cities in the County.

Despite a reshuffling of priorities in Sacramento to fill an historic $34.8 billion State budget gap, O'Connor vowed to continue to push for the Expo-rail, which is estimated to cost as much as $68 million per mile, or $1.95 billion for the 17.3-mile-long project.

"My personal special interest in terms of Santa Monica is to continue to move the Expo light-rail forward," said O'Connor, who was reelected to a third council term in November. "And even in times of economic uncertainty, I want to make sure that project is at least in the queue."

O'Connor acknowledged that the light-rail project -- which would link downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica mainly along Exposition Boulevard -- could be pushed back a couple of years.

"It may be that the timeline for it has been now pushed back a little bit more," she said. "What I know is if we just throw up our hands, it'll never get built. If we don't keep it on track and in that pipeline it will get lost. My goal is to keep it moving forward."

O'Connor was originally elected to the MTA board in April of 2001, defeating Gardena Councilman Ron Ikijeri in a race to fill a partial 19-month-term that opened up after former Gardena Councilman Jim Cragin failed to win re-election.

O'Connor's reelection bid was primarily pinned on improving communication between the loosely knit 18-city network and the MTA bureaucracy, which oversees a $2.5 billion budget and nearly 10,000 employees in the massive 1,433-square-mile bus, light-rail and metro service area.

"Getting timely information to cities and responding to the needs of the cities" is her duty, O'Connor said. "I realize I was successful at that because I was unanimously reelected."

O'Connor became involved in public transit in 1997 when her car broke down. As then mayor of Santa Monica, she refused to buy another car and began riding the Big Blue Bus to work.

Riding public transit "got me thinking about the policy issues and how it all works together," O'Connor said.