New OCTA Chief’s Way: Walk Softly

It didn’t take Arthur Leahy long to realize he had a noisy controversy on his hands in the $2.3-billion CenterLine project. He’d barely finished his first day of work as county transportation chief when people were shouting, pleading and blowing whistles at him to both build and abandon the plan.

His solution: Turn down the volume.

In a move that typifies what colleagues say is Leahy’s practical political sense, the new Orange County Transportation Authority chief executive pulled the plug on further rail line planning so the project could be reevaluated. Days before his announcement, Leahy described his desire to remove emotion from the discussion.

“What I want to do is lower the volume of debate a little,” Leahy said. “Very strong positions are being taken. Some say we’re doomed if we don’t build it and others say CenterLine is a very bad thing. The fact is neither of these extreme positions has merit.”

Colleagues and critics of the CenterLine project say Wednesday’s action reveals where the 52-year-old Los Angeles native parts company with traditional transit directors, officials who often come from engineering or technical backgrounds and are sometimes deaf to the concerns of anxious residents.

“The mentality of many government organizations in these types of projects is: Hold a public meeting just so you can say you held one and then do whatever it is you planned to do,” said Ted Mondale, a Minnesota official who oversaw Leahy’s work on an approved $675-million light rail line in the Twin Cities.

“Well, people are sick of that sort of thing, and they’re not going to take it,” Mondale said. “Art, however, understands politics. He knows there’s a time to push and a time not to push. He knows the balance between technical, operational and political aspects of projects.”

Former colleagues at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles and Metro Transit in Minneapolis say it’s Leahy’s early transportation career that enables him to deal well with the public. Leahy started out in mass transit by driving a bus for the MTA. He was following in the footsteps of both his parents, who also ferried bus and streetcar passengers over the streets of Los Angeles.

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Even before he decided to shelve the CenterLine project, Leahy, who started in January, made a strong impression on the OCTA staff with his fast-paced work schedule and disdain for long-standing meeting routines and such modern tethers as pagers and cell phones. His office in Orange, which overlooks the notorious freeway interchange known as the Orange Crush, is filled with bus, train and baseball souvenirs. He’s a die-hard Dodgers fan and keeps a baseball autographed by pitcher Sandy Koufax beside his computer.

“He’s real old-school,” said one transit agency official. “He doesn’t want to be disturbed when he’s focusing on something, so he’s always leaving the pager behind. He’s going all the time too. I haven’t seen him sit still for 30 seconds.”

Transit agency board members hired Leahy specifically for the skills he showed in shepherding the Hiawatha light rail line through to approval in Minnesota. Before his arrival, the project was stymied by heavy opposition. Critics were chaining themselves to trees and throwing pies in the faces of officials. Seven county governments were battling over various aspects of the plan. Leahy, who enjoyed the powerful support of the state’s governor, former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, is credited with quelling much of the discord.

Leahy, however, bristles at the notion that he is here only to build a rail line. In fact, he says that construction is far from a foregone conclusion and that he plans to focus as heavily on maintaining and improving county freeways and the ambitious OCTA plan to expand bus service by nearly 50%.

“I hope I’m a champion for improved transportation, not just light rail,” he said.

Leahy’s interest in even the minute details of public transit was evident during a recent visit he paid to the transit agency’s Garden Grove bus base, where the chief executive surprised underlings by removing his jacket and asking to take a new 20-ton liquid-propane-fueled coach for a spin. A group of bus base managers gripped the vehicle’s passenger assist rails tightly and swayed as Leahy spun the steering wheel and alternately punched the gas and stomped on the brakes.

“I want to get a feel for pickup and acceleration,” Leahy said with a grin. “I can see why drivers like this bus. It picks up.”

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Leahy’s announcement on CenterLine, which cheered agency officials and rail critics alike, followed a monthlong barrage of criticism of the project--from city council members, school boards, newspapers and editorial cartoonists.

It’s unclear when--or if--work will resume on the rail line, which critics say is massively overpriced and will do little to reduce traffic congestion or pollution. However, some officials say the break in controversy may be the best chance yet for officials to shore up support for the 30-mile route and reverse the desertion rate among leaders in cities along the proposed line.

Perhaps the greatest indication that the plan is not dead is Leahy’s desire to hire a new director of rail development, who will manage much of the engineering and technical aspects of the planning process.

“I guess I have to say Mr. Leahy is a very smart fellow,” said Wayne King, a fervent opponent of the CenterLine project and a member of the group Drivers for Highway Safety. “I think he got here and found the project so terribly mismanaged that it had to be stopped and started over.”

Leahy, who is married and has two sons, said he initially began driving a bus to work his way through UCLA. The work grew on him.

But it was at the 1984 Olympics that Leahy says he learned just how exciting public transit work is. His job was coordinating bus service for thousands of athletes and dignitaries.

“We were dispatching 10 buses every minute,” he recalled. “It was incredible watching those buses roll, one after another after another. It was then that I learned adrenaline could be addictive.”