January 5, 2009
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Snoble Announces Retirement from Los Angeles Metro
Roger Snoble, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority since 2001, has announced that he plans to retire as soon as his successor is named. Snoble cited the November 2008 passage of Measure R, a new half-cent sales tax that will support transportation improvements in Los Angeles County over the next 30 years, in his statement. “I think this is an opportune time to move on and pass the baton to another executive who will ensure the implementation of Measure R,” he said. “I did a lot of soul-searching and decided it’s in the best interest of the agency to have an executive on board soon who can commit the next four to five years in guiding the development of dozens of critical transit and highway projects that will be funded by the new sales tax, which will be collected starting next July.”
Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the Los Angeles Metro Board, said Snoble “has led Metro to new heights in the delivery of expanded, quality public transportation to the citizens of Los Angeles County. What was a troubled and moribund agency more than 10 years ago is now recognized as one of the highest-performing bus systems in the nation.”
During his tenure at Los Angeles Metro, Snoble has overseen service expansion including 28 Metro Rapid bus lines, ridership on the Bus Rapid Transit Metro Orange Line at a level three times above projections, and construction of the Eastside Extension of the light rail Metro Gold Line, scheduled to open in the summer. The system received APTA’s Outstanding Public Transportation System award for its size category in 2006.
Noting Snoble’s supportive management style, Millar called him “a quiet star who successfully led two of the nation’s most complex transportation agencies to exceptional levels of performance.” Snoble’s career in public transportation spans 43 years, beginning as a planner for the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission in Akron, OH, in 1965. Before coming to Los Angeles, he served for seven years as president/executive director of Dallas Area Rapid Transit, receiving APTA’s Transit Manager of the Year honor in 1997. He also worked for 20 years with the San Diego Transit Corporation, rising through the ranks to become its president and general manager, and was a planner for the Akron Metro Transit District.
He is a designated director on the APTA Board of Directors and a member of the Commuter Rail Committee; Rail Standards Policy and Planning Committee; Rail Transit CEOs Subcommittee; and Rail Transit Committee. Snoble served as APTA vice president-management and finance in 1989-90, while he was at San Diego Transit Corporation.
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