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WILBUR S
1911-1990
SMITH
BY DONALD S. BERRY
WILBUR S SMITH internationally known for his achievements
in planning, designing, and evaluating transportation systems,
died on July 25, 1990, at the age of seventy-eight. At the time of
his death he was chairman of the boarcl of Wilbur S. Smith
Management of Columbia, South Carolina.
Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 196S, Mr.
Smith was still active in the transportation field up to the time of
his death. During his career he was an innovator in the develop-
ment of modern transportation systems. Mr. Smith directed the
specialists in his consulting firm, Wilbur Smith andAssociates, in
evaluating the feasibility of alternative locations and designs for
major sections of the Interstate Highway System, the New Jersey
Turnpike, other toll roads, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel,
and the mass transit system in Washington, D.C. He was also an
adviser on many other projects such as the transportation tun-
nels under the English Channel.
Mr. Smith was born in Columbia, South Carolina, on Septem-
ber 6, 1911, and graduated from the University of South Caro-
Tina in electrical engineering. After receiving an M.S. in 1933, he
was employed by the South Carolina Highway Department. In
1935 he was appointed the state's first traffic engineer. Several
months later he enrolled as a fellowship student at the Bureau
for Street Traffic Research at Harvard University. After complet-
ing a nine-month training program in 1937, he returned to the
211
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212
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Highway Department of South Carolina, where he headed the
state's first Traffic Engineering Division.
During the next four years, Mr. Smith developed a statewide
traffic control program with emphasis on unifying traffic control
devices, correcting high-hazard locations on the state highway
system, and providing assistance to local authorities. He built a
staff of thirty persons. In 1941 he took a year's leave of absence
to work at the Bureau of Highway Traffic at Yale University on a
research project on the economies of motor vehicle transporta-
tion.
At the beginning of World War II Mr. Smith was recruited by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to organize and carry
out a training program for engineering officials and police on
emergency traffic control during blackouts and air raids. He
assembled a group of twenty traffic specialists and trained them
to teach a one-week course on emergency management. These
one-week courses were held throughout the country, with more
than a thousand public officials receiving the training.
In 1943 Mr. Smith returned to Yale University to become
associate director of the Yale Bureau of Highway Traffic, where
he stayed until 1957. During this time he served as a consultant
to the FBI and also to the Office of Civil Defense on war-related
traffic and transportation problems. He also began serving as a
consultant on the traffic problems of cities and other govern-
ment agencies while still teaching at the Yale Bureau.
In 1952 he established the consulting firm of Wilbur Smith
and Associates, with offices at New Haven, Connecticut, and in
Columbia, South Carolina. During the next twenty-nine years
the firm expanded a great deal, with offices established in
twenty-eight cities of the United States and in thirteen foreign
locations. Wilbur at times handled some one hundred projects
simultaneously, traveling as many as 250,000 miles in a year to
review them. Wilbur was a licensed professional engineer in all
fifty states, the District of Columbia, the United Kingdom, New
Zealand, Hong Kong, and Queensland, Australia.
In 1981 Mr. Smith merged his consulting firm into Armco,
Inc., and in 1983 he retired from the firm. The firm later was
acquired by its 750 employees and was renamed Wilbur Smith
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WILBUR S. SMITH
213
Associates. Mr. Smith then established a firm called Wilbur S.
Smith Management, while serving as senior consultant to Wilbur
Smith Associates.
Mr. Smith received many honors and awards, including an
honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of South
Carolina (1963), and an honorary doctor of humanities degree
from Lancler College (1975~. He was awarded honorary mem-
bership status in the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the American
Public Works Association. Other awards include Engineer of the
Year of the South Carolina Society of Professional Engineers
(1964~; the Theodore M. Matson MemorialAward sponsored by
the Institute of Transportation Engineers (1965~; the National
Research Counci]Transportation Research Board's Roy W. Crum
Award ~ 1980~; the Institute of Transportation Engineers' Bur-
ton W. Marsh Distinguished Service Award (1982~; the Duke
University School of Engineering Distinguished Service Award
(1982~; the Highway Division Award from ASCE, now known as
the Wilbur S. Smith Award ~ 1983~; the George S. Bartlett Award
of the American Association of State Highway and Transporta-
tion Of ficials ~ 1985~; the NSPE Award of the National Society of
Professional Engineers (1985~; ant! the Francis C. Turner Lec-
ture award of ASCE ~ 1990) .
Mr. Smith was elected a member of the National Academy of
Engineering (NAE) in 1968. He served from 1974 to 1978 as a
member of the NAE-sponsored Committee on Transportation
of the Assembly of Engineering, National Research Council. He
was a member ~1958-1969) and chairman ~1963-1964) of the
executive committee of the Highway Research Board of the
National Research Council and chairman of the board's Special
Committee on International Cooperative Activities. In addition,
he served (1969-1970) on the Department of Traffic and Opera-
tions of the Highway Research Board
`, ~ . . . . . . . .
Mr. Smith participated actively in many other professional
engineering organizations. He was president of the Institute of
Traffic Engineers (1949-1950) and a member of its board of
directors from 1942 to 1958. He was chairman (1967-1968) of
the Executive Committee of the Highway Division of ASCE,
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
chairman of the ASCE Committee on Transportation Planning,
and chairman of the ASCE Committee on National Transporta-
tion Policy. He was president and chairman of the board of the
Eno Foundation for Transportation for a great many years. He
was national president of the American Road and Transporta-
tion Builders Association. He also was a member of the board of
directors of the National Safety Council and was on the Board of
the International Road Federation.
Apartial list of Mr. Smith's memberships in other professional
organizations includes the National Society of Professional En-
gineers, the International Bridge and Turnpike Association, the
American Institute of Consulting Engineers, the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the New York Society of
Professional Engineers, the South Carolina Society of Profes-
sional Engineers, the Transportation Society of America, and
the Institution of Civil Engineers in both Australia and Hong
Kong.
Mr. Smith was a coauthor (with Matson and Hurd) of the first
comprehensive traffic engineering textbook, which was pub-
lished by McGraw Hill in 1955. Another early publication of
which he was a coauthor was State-City Relationships in Highway
Affairs, published by the Yale University Press in 1950. He was
also author or coauthor of many publications on the state of the
art, published by the Eno Foundation.
One of several papers of which Mr. Smith was the author or a
coauthor in the 1960s is "Research and Worldwide Urban Trans-
portation," published in Highway Research Record No. 125, High-
way Research Board, 1966. Among the twelve papers he authored
since the 1970s are "The Challenge in Developing a Multi-modal
Urban Transportation System, " ITE journal, f une 1978; "Current
Trends in Toll Financing," Transportation Research Record 900,
1983; "Mass Transport for High-Rise High-Density Living, " (with
N. H. Westefeld ) Journal of Transportation Engineering, v. 1 10, Nov.
1984; and "Observations on Australian Transportation," Trans-
portation Quarterly, (with Thomas Larson) Oct. 1989. Many re-
ports on contract research, written by staff members of Wilbur
Smith and Associates, have been published over the years. Two
published by the Transportation Research Board are "Bus Use of
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WILBUR S. SMITH
215
Highways: State of the Art, " NCHRP (National CooperativeHighway
ResearchProgram)Re,portNo.143,1973,and"BusUseofHighways:
Planning and Design Guidelines," NCHRP Report No. 155, 1975.
Wilbur was a humanitarian who loved South Carolina. He
moved his headquarters office to Columbia from New Haven in
the 1950s. He served on many boards and advisory councils for
the University of South Carolina, the Presbyterian College, the
South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, the South Carolina
Research Authority, the Salvation Army, the State Public Works
Historical Society, the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame,
and several banks and development corporations. He taught
part-time at the University of South Carolina and at Clemson
University while classes were suspended at the Yale bureau
during part of World War II. He enjoyed bird hunting at one of
his farms near Columbia.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
highway research
