Should a public transit rider have a dedicated seat on Metro’s Board?

For decades, the Los Angeles Metro Board, which runs the countywide public transit system that sees more than 1 million daily riders, has operated without a member of the public who regularly rides trains and buses among its members.

Now, calls to change that are growing. On Thursday, the Metro Board is set to vote on what the future make-up of the governing body should look like, and there are several options on the table:

• Allow politicians who select Metro Board appointees the flexibility to appoint transit riders or subject matter experts to the Metro Board — a recommendation from Metro staff. 
• Reserve two seats for transit riders and expand the board from 13 to 14 voting members — a proposal from L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and three of her colleagues on the Metro Board. This option would not allow for the so-called flexible appointments recommended by agency staff. 
• Create an additional Metro Board seat guaranteed to be held by a transit rider — a proposal from L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn.

Sound complicated? It is. Let’s break it down:

The background

Currently, there are 13 voting members of the Metro Board: the five L.A. County Supervisors, the mayor of L.A. and her three appointees, and four regional representatives from across the county chosen by a selection committee.

There’s no requirement that they have transit expertise or public ridership experience.

At the beginning of this year, the Metro Board formed a committee that convened monthly to discuss how the Metro Board could be reformatted in light of Measure G. That’s the measure L.A. County voters passed in 2024, which expands the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members by 2032 and adds an elected countywide executive.

The make-up of the Metro Board is codified in the state’s public utilities code, so any proposed changes approved on Thursday will need another vote by legislators in Sacramento before they go into effect.

Metro staff’s recommendation and Bass’ competing motion

Based on feedback from committee deliberations, public input and a review of peer agencies across the country, Metro officials in June proposed maintaining the size and geographic split of the Board. 

Under that proposal, they also recommended expanding the pool of people who could serve on the Metro Board to include riders and experts in relevant subjects, like engineering or finance. If ultimately approved, these members could be chosen by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, the mayor of L.A. or the city selection committee.

In its recommendation, Metro officials notably shied away from adding a seat to the board, saying an extra person would impose “administrative and financial burdens on the agency.”

According to the rules for the Board, members are paid $150 per day they attend “to the business” of Metro up to $600 per month.

Metro’s media relations office did not answer a request for more information on what additional administrative and financial burdens the addition of a board member would impose on the agency.

A competing motion introduced by Bass would not allow the L.A. County Board of Supervisors or the committee that selects the four regional representatives to appoint a transit rider or subject matter expert.

Instead, it would designate one of the mayor’s four seats for a for a transit advocate or rider, and it would add a 14th voting member of the board who would also be a rider.

Currently, all five of the L.A. County Supervisors are guaranteed a spot on the L.A. Metro Board.

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Courtesy L.A. County Board of Supervisors

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A guaranteed seat for a transit rider versus an optional seat

Hahn’s motion does not directly conflict with staff’s recommendation, and similar to Bass’ motion, would add a transit rider to the Metro Board.

Hahn said a dedicated seat for a transit rider would be more powerful than an appointed one.

“I worry that if [the rider] was just an appointed position by an elected official … [the rider] would feel loyalty to the appointing elected official as opposed to loyalty to their fellow riders,” she said in an interview with LAist.

She said it’s clear that there’s a community desire for a guaranteed rider seat on the Board.

During a public outreach period between February and May, Metro gathered input from 1,300 people. The clearest and most consistent piece of feedback was that the public wants to see a “formal rider voice on the Metro Board,” according to a Metro report. 

While the staff recommendation to expand who can sit on the Metro Board would theoretically allow for the appointment of a transit rider, if not several transit riders, some officials have questioned whether elected officials would voluntarily cede political power to a member of the public if that option moves forward.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath characterized a future under Metro staff’s recommendation as a “political game of chicken.”

“ Who's going to take the responsibility and give up the power that they hold?” Horvath told LAist.

Why don’t the Metro Board members … just ride transit themselves? 

Michael Schneider, the head of the influential transportation advocacy group Streets for All, warned that reserving a seat for a transit rider on the Metro Board could backfire.

He said adding a seat for a rider, or any interest group, risks creating a situation where Metro Board members defer leadership to the representative.

“The rider experience should be top of mind for all board members,” Schneider said. “If there’s a specific seat for a rider, then board members may decide to not pay as much attention to the rider experience.”

Schneider argues Metro Board members should all be mandated to use Metro at least once a week. It’s a metric that could be tracked using TAP cards, he suggested.

“It’s hard to improve a system that you don’t have experience with,” Schneider said. “Experience is not sitting in a chair in a boardroom. It’s on a train or on a bus or using Metro bike share.”

A large part of the L.A. Metro Board's responsibility is overseeing L.A. County's public transit system.

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David McNew

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Getty Images North America

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Transit rider appointment just one part of broader conversation 

The debate over a dedicated transit rider on the Metro Board is just one of several thorny questions, some politically charged, that officials are weighing as they decide what the Metro Board should look like.

Here’s what else will likely be discussed on the topic on Thursday:

• How many seats should the city of L.A. have on Metro’s Board? Under state law, if the city’s population falls below 35% of L.A. County’s entire population, then one of the city’s  four seats would be transferred to the other 87 cities. Some, including Horvath and John Fasana, a former mayor of Duarte and previously a longtime Metro Board member, have urged that the threshold be increased to 43.75%. 
• Should the county executive have a dedicated seat on the Metro Board? With the number of county-level seats remaining at five despite an upcoming L.A. County Board of Supervisors expansion to nine seats, some have argued that parts of the county could be underrepresented without additional representation.