OCTA Picks Chief

A former Los Angeles bus driver who went on to a top management position in that transit agency was hired Monday to head the Orange County Transportation Authority and build a proposed $2.8-billion light-rail line from Fullerton to Irvine.

Arthur Leahy, now general manager of Metro Transit in Minneapolis, will replace OCTA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Mills, who resigned in July. Leahy, who will earn $155,000 a year, will assume his job in January.

Laurann Cook, OCTA board chairwoman, said Leahy was selected over four other finalists in part because of his experience in guiding a $625-million light-rail project for Minneapolis that is expected to be funded in January.

“It was important that we find someone with light-rail experience,” Cook said. “We’re looking at making a decision on the CenterLine project [connecting north and south Orange County] in the next couple of months.

“We need someone who can develop a consensus for a project like this. Someone who can get a community’s acceptance for the line and do outreach. Leahy has done all of this in Minnesota.”

Leahy said Monday he will work with the cities along the proposed CenterLine route “to form a partnership for the project.”

“You’ve got to find a solution that makes sense and which people will accept,” he said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles International Airport, where he was waiting to board a flight for Minneapolis. “This is a project that would enhance the quality of life in Orange County and solve a mobility problem. You have to let the cities along the line know that we’re partners and not adversaries.”

In Minnesota, however, the 11.6-mile line that will connect downtown Minneapolis, the airport and the Mall of America has been the subject of controversy because of growing cost estimates and opposition by some communities that do not want the tracks laid in their neighborhoods.

Leahy said most of the controversy arose from “major objections over the line’s alignment.”

Leahy became head of the transit agency for the Twin Cities in the spring of 1997, a year after he was fired as executive officer for operations at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles when new leadership arrived.

Leahy was hired as an MTA bus driver in 1971 and worked his way up the MTA ranks, stepping out of the bus into the agency’s marketing department and eventually directing 6,200 employees as head of operations.

During his tenure at MTA, Leahy was credited with launching the nation’s largest alternative-fuel program for buses, switching from diesel to cleaner-burning fuels. But he also came under criticism as head of the agency’s rail operations when subway cars began experiencing prematurely worn wheels, a high rate of gearbox failures and other troubles.

Leahy was replaced when a new transit chief executive officer, Joseph E. Drew, arrived. Leahy said Drew, who has since left, “had every right to dismiss me when he came in, because he wanted to set up his own management team.”

“He decided I was not the person to take the organization I was in charge of in the direction that he wanted it to go,” Leahy said. “So I retired from the MTA. In retrospect, it worked out well for me because I was able to do some good things in Minneapolis.”

Leahy comes from a family of MTA workers. His parents and a brother worked for the agency. His father taught him to drive a bus. Leahy drove the same line that his parents drove as street car operators in the 1940s, from Highland Park to downtown Los Angeles, he said.

In Minneapolis, Leahy had “many accomplishments,” said Metro Transit spokesman Bob Gibbons. But it wasn’t all a smooth ride, especially for the light-rail project.

Republican state representative Phil Krinkie has been one of the project’s most vocal critics. Krinkie said the cost was initially estimated at $446 million. After the state Legislature approved the project, Metro Transit officials raised the estimate to $700 million, then reduced it to $625 million.

“The project being built will be a scaled-back version with fewer cars and stations,” Krinkie said.

Gibbons said Leahy was a “catalyst” for the project, called the Hiawatha Line, which is scheduled for completion by 2004. He also credited Leahy for increasing bus ridership, which grew almost 9% last year to 78 million riders.

“Since he got here in March 1997, we improved the quality of service and marketed our service more effectively,” Gibbons said.

The improvements included enrolling more than 30 companies in a program that allowed them to buy bus passes for their employees at a discount, he said.

Gibbons said Metro Transit has about 2,600 employees and an annual operating budget of $170 million. It is the 13th-largest transit operation in the country and runs 930 buses, he said. In comparison, the OCTA has a $525-million budget, 1,600 employees and 500 buses. But unlike Metro Transit, OCTA is also responsible for freeway and other roadway projects in the county.

Leahy said he has limited experience with roadway projects but doesn’t anticipate any problems overseeing bus, rail and highway construction.

“OCTA has very broad responsibilities, but it is an agency with a very good staff,” he said. “Probably a more daunting task will be to meet the mobility challenge for the county. It’s grown incredibly big in the last 30 years, and I’m amazed at how spread out it is.”

Mills, who resigned in July but left her position in September, is still weighing options in the private sector, OCTA spokesman George Urch said. She earned $157,000 a year, $2,000 more than Leahy’s starting salary.