Mr. Leary Departs

At the TTC Board meeting on June 20, 2024, CEO Rick Leary announced his intention to resign effective August 30 saying:

“I believe there are some new opportunities and challenges that await me before I fully retire.”

That’s the polite sort of announcement made when someone overstays their welcome. It is no secret that there were earlier moves to oust Leary including a failed attempt in October 2023 and questions about his role in creating a poisoned workplace. [Links are to Toronto Star articles.] Neither Leary nor Board Chair Myers would answer questions from the media about the investigation into his behaviour beyond saying that this was not the reason for his departure.

In a dramatic change from the usual TTC Board meetings, there was a truly private, private session. Almost all of the management who normally sit in on these meetings left, including Leary himself. Eventually, the room reopened and was set up for a press conference. Leary announced his decision to resign, and TTC Chair Jamaal Myers made brief remarks thanking Leary for his work. The full Board meeting then resumed for other business, but with an odd air that nothing would top Leary’s announcement, not even the formal ratification of the three-year contract with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113.

According to Myers, plans are that an Interim CEO will be named to take over from Leary pro tem at the end of August, and with a parallel search for a new permanent CEO. The sense is that this process will not be rushed. Further details are expected in a few weeks.

In his role as Chair, Myers praised Leary both at this and at the previous Board meeting when Leary’s 10-year TTC anniversary was celebrated. Among the accomplishments cited were “Performance Standards for service quality, vehicle reliability, cost control and personnel”.

Leary’s performance standards leave much to be desired as I have explained in previous articles. Service quality is measured only at terminals, and with enough leeway for “on time performance” that badly bunched service can meet standards. Service quality is reported only on a broad average basis with little relevance to actual rider experience

Vehicle reliability values are artificially capped and show exactly the same mean-distance-before-failure month after month. Comparison between vehicle types, and especially the performance of new battery buses, is impossible.

Cost control is laudable in the proper context, but when this leads to staffing constraints, falling maintenance standards and deferral of key capital programs, that is sweeping problems under the rug, not responsible fiscal management.

Myers also cited Leary’s work on creation of the TTC’s diversity program. Although this may have its benefits, too often this been the focus of CEO reports when other pressing issues stayed on the back burner. Good news to avoid the bad.

Other accomplishments Leary himself cited include improvement of surface operations, creation of the Capital Investment Plan, and prioritization of “greening” of the fleet with electric buses.

Leary’s surface operational improvements rest on a one-size-fixes-all solution: pad running times so that short turns are never required. In practice, this blocked the use of a valid tactic for service management and artificially sustained vehicle bunching. Another tactic, the use of “run as directed” buses looks good on paper, but many of these vehicles do little to improve service and their actual contribution is hard to track.

The Capital Investment Plan first appeared on Leary’s watch, but work on it dates to the Byford era. As for electric buses, repeated bragging about the fleet’s size is no substitute for good vehicle performance. Only the large size of the bus fleet with a spare ratio well over industry norms protects TTC from service cuts due to lack of vehicles.

Although the resignation appeared to be sudden, this was clearly in the works for some time. Leary’s statement includes:

Some will ask about the timing of this announcement, and that’s fair.

For me it was about seeing one last major undertaking over the finish line – that being the new Collective Agreement with ATU Local 113, our largest union partner.

I believed that it was my duty and obligation to ensure the new agreement was in place before I stepped down.

The challenge now is where to go from here. It is clear that some Commissioners are less than pleased with the current situation, especially Councillor Saxe who chairs the Audit and Risk Management Committee. She has seen up close the quality of management and reporting, and spoke on CBC’s Metro Morning (June 21) about the need for improvement. The Board overall has a better sense of the need for “Risk Management” after severe incidents including the SRT derailment and premature shutdown.

However, one aspect that the Board has not pursued is their duty to ensure that management practices are not, in themselves, a risk to the organization. Leary drove many senior people out of TTC, some with severance payouts and non-disclosure agreements. This depleted both management strength and institutional memory, while rewarding loyalty as a prime talent.

The ongoing failure to advise the TTC Board, and through them, Council on the true state of the TTC should have earned Leary an exit from his role even without considering his effect on the work environment. The Board was far too lenient, and Toronto will pay for this for years to come.

If the interim and eventually permanent CEO’s job will simply be to “preserve Leary’s legacy”, one might almost ask why bother. That legacy is a sham of misleading reporting and decay through operations and maintenance. More subtly, the Leary era has seen budgets trimmed to fit City spending targets with no public discussion (or apparent Board interest) in what these trade-offs entailed. This included deferral of the badly-needed Line 2 replacement fleet (and its associated new carhouse) that was on the books under Andy Byford, but pushed back under Leary. This “solved” a City budget problem, but exposed the TTC to the risk of not having a reliable fleet later this decade.

A timing challenge lies in the date when Leary will finally leave 1900 Yonge Street and a new, albeit interim CEO takes over. Building the 2025 budget and plans beyond requires attention now, including from the Board who in years past were content to receive a finished document at year end. We must not go into 2025 with yet another year of minor change and no real debate on transit’s capabilities and future.

Budgets and work plans going forward must not just keep pace with inflation and a small growth in service, but must tackle the maintenance backlog and decline in the TTC’s capability to look after its own assets. Much focus on the Capital budget, including for new trains, deflects attention from problems in the Operating budget. A new CEO must be willing to “look under rocks”, to find areas that need attention and improvement, not just continue with “good news” reports that everything is just fine, thank you.

A new CEO must inspire the full TTC even though rebuilding will be difficult and, for some, uncomfortable.