Liz Ames

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Liz Ames

Nonpartisan

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors District 6

Tenure

2018 - Present

Term ends

2026

Years in position

7

Report an officeholder change

Elections and appointments

Last elected

November 8, 2022

Contact

Campaign website

Liz Ames is a member of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors in California, representing District 6. She assumed office in 2018. Her current term ends in 2026.

Ames ran for re-election to the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors to represent District 6 in California. She won in the general election on November 8, 2022.

Ames completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.

Elections

2022

See also: Municipal elections in Alameda County, California (2022)

General election

General election for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors District 6

Incumbent Liz Ames defeated Lance Nishihira and Shyam Chetal in the general election for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors District 6 on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Liz Ames (Nonpartisan)	47.7	39,651
		Lance Nishihira (Nonpartisan)	32.4	26,924
	Submit photo	Shyam Chetal (Nonpartisan)	20.0	16,616

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 83,191
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

2018

See also: Municipal elections in Alameda County, California (2018)

General election

General election for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors District 6

Liz Ames defeated Anu Natarajan in the general election for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors District 6 on November 6, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Liz Ames (Nonpartisan)	53.3	46,831
		Anu Natarajan (Nonpartisan)	45.8	40,270
		Other/Write-in votes	0.9	761

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 87,862
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Liz Ames completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ames' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am focused on the rider experience. I have been a commuter myself since 1992, and I know what investments are needed to support the rider experience. I support improvements in stations and trains with a focus on public safety and system reliability. As a civil engineer, I have experience with large agency budgets – BART is a $2.5 billion agency – and understand finance and project management. In addition to my work as an engineer and manager with the City of Palo Alto, I have been past board member and president of the Palo Alto Community Federal Credit Union. I volunteered for 30 years to preserve open space and agricultural land as Chair of Save our Hills, created healthy communities, and advocated for better services for residents and businesses.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• BART is not doing enough to ensure the safety of riders. I spearheaded the effort to replace ‘70s-era fare gates in order to reduce rampant fare evasion, saving millions annually in lost revenues. I support hiring more BART police and Community Service Officers.
• One of my priorities is infrastructure improvements. For instance, I worked hard to secure funding for the Union City BART station to provide access from the east side of the station. I continue to push to improve the rider experience -- better on-time performance, safer stations and trains and continued investment in improved operations. Additionally, transit cars and stations must be clean and well maintained. I understand finance and budgets for an agency that completes over 100 projects at $2.5 billion annually.
• BART needs smart transit orientated development, not just housing. BART should collaborate with cities to create a job-housing balance, so we are not building more housing for jobs elsewhere. BART needs to work closely with the communities where BART stations are located to create new jobs near BART stations. This would allow workers to walk or bike to BART for shorter commutes. Creating jobs around stations will improve our quality of life, reduce commuting time and make for better communities.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

My focus has been on creating clean, safe, reliable transit while changing the job-housing land uses around BART stations. I spearheaded the purchase of new fare gates and supported enclosing elevators to prevent fare evasion and reduce crime on the system. New fare gates will save the agency millions of dollars annually in lost revenues from fare gate jumpers. BART needs to work with municipalities on creating employment near transit centers, making it easier for workers to get to their jobs. BART transit should be convenient, safe, clean, and a preferred reliable way to travel. See www.ames4change.com to learn about creating places where we live-work-play to improve our quality of life.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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Candidate

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors District 6

Website