Meghan Sahli-Wells has served as a member or alternate member of the MSRC for the past two years representing the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). Throughout her tenure, Meghan has brought her significant passion for developing and implementing local sustainable transportation solutions in Southern California.
Meghan shared that, “every time the MSRC funds a project, it’s not just a project and numbers (representing emissions reductions). These are investments benefitting some of our region’s most vulnerable communities and improving their quality of life.”
Meghan has been known as the “Biking Mayor” in Culver City because she rides her bike everywhere possible. Meghan is just the fifth woman to be elected to the City Council and the only woman to have served two terms as Mayor. She was first elected to the City Council nearly a decade ago based in-part on her tireless efforts to help advocate for and craft the city’s first bike and pedestrian master plan and Safe Routes to School program.
Some of Meghan’s signature clean transportation accomplishments have included: bringing CicLAvia’s car-free streets event to the city, helping to successfully plan for the Metro Expo Line extension through Culver City, and advocating for SCAG’s GO HUMAN campaign as a member of its Energy and Environment Committee, serving as a SCAG Regional Council Member representing the Westside Cities. As a board member of the Clean Power Alliance (CPA), she also led Culver City’s effort to be one of the region’s first cities to sign-up for 100% renewable power, and she has led the City’s efforts to transition to 100% electric buses by 2028.
Just this past month, Meghan helped lead the effort to pass a resolution to phase out oil drilling over the next five years at the Inglewood Oil Field, which is the largest urban oil field in the entire country. She looks at clean transportation solutions holistically. Meghan believes we have to transition off our dependence on oil and invest in the clean energy jobs of the future. She recently voted for the CPA to invest in an innovative solar and battery storage project that will power 23,000 homes and provide good local jobs. She hopes to advocate for similar projects to replace the oil fields in Culver City.
Meghan has been motivated to collaborate with local, regional and state policymakers to achieve this impressive array of clean transportation policy successes thanks to formative experiences she had growing up in Culver City, as well as her opportunities to live and travel extensively abroad.
Meghan moved to Culver City when she was eleven years old. Like many young people, she was only too excited to get her driver’s license at the age of 16 thinking that driving a car would be her ticket to independence. She soon discovered that her independence instead often felt more like trapped dependence that wasted hours of time in traffic and contributed to exacerbating Southern California’s smog problems.
After attending UCLA, she studied abroad in France, where she wound up staying for 14 years. While living in Paris, she didn’t have any need for owning a car and she discovered many sustainable transportation solutions in other cities and countries that she would later champion back in Southern California. When Meghan and her family returned to Culver City, she pledged that she wouldn’t go back to the car culture she grew up with. Meghan primarily bikes, walks and uses transit and in the pre-Covid-19 days, she participated in the MSRC’s meetings from the remote video location in downtown Los Angeles to avoid vehicle emissions, getting there by bike and commuter bus.
Though Meghan is soon termed out of office, she’s especially proud of not only helping Culver City and Southern California embrace policies to get off oil, advance electric transportation and 100% renewable power generation, but also for helping to elect her local government colleagues in Culver City that include the first African American and first Asian American to serve on the City Council.
Meghan is really pleased to see the regional clean transportation progress that she helped advocate for come to fruition with the MSRC’s programs. She said, “the MSRC’s approach of collaborating with all stakeholders is critically important. By now tackling the hugely impactful and challenging sector of cleaning up goods movement in Southern California, the MSRC can truly help ensure our region can survive and thrive.”