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IN MEMORIAM
Wolfgang S. Homburger
Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering
UC Berkeley
1926 –2010
Wolfgang S. Homburger, the former assistant director of the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) and lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, died June 9, 2010, after he was injured in a fall. He was 83.
Homburger joined ITS in 1955 as a junior research engineer. By the time he retired in 1990 he was the institute’s assistant director; and his popular classes, along with his textbook, Fundamentals of Traffic Engineering, now in its sixteenth printing, have influenced thousands of students and transportation professionals.
In his 35 years as an ITS research engineer, Homburger taught graduate and undergraduate courses in transportation engineering. He combined teaching with a diverse research agenda, and as the institute grew he served as its assistant director. He lectured in countries around the world and authored numerous publications and articles. More than 20 years ago, he told Bay Area transportation agencies they could save millions of dollars by forming a regional federation and developing a single ticketing operation that would allow riders to travel around the region as if there were only one system.
In the sixties, Homburger pioneered the implementation of computer-based travel analysis models, laying the foundation of what later became common application of computing in transportation research and practice. As assistant director of ITS, Homburger helped expand and broaden the research agenda to encompass transportation research that cuts across the disciplines of engineering, planning, and the social sciences. In addition to traffic engineering and computer-aided transportation planning, Homburger did pioneering work on the relationship between public health and traffic safety. The result was a traffic safety research center as a joint effort between ITS and the School of Public Health, and a suite of courses on traffic safety jointly given by public health and civil engineering. Homburger broadened the role and contributions of traffic engineers in California by aiding the implementation of professional recognition and professional standards, culminating in the testing and licensing of traffic engineers. He was particularly proud of the low number on his California traffic engineer’s license!
After retiring, Homburger had more time to devise new extension courses. In 1992, he collaborated with two Berkeley faculty members to develop a course on residential street design and traffic control. In the summer of 1992, he helped present a new transit service planning course. He also taught in New Zealand and Australia, tailoring the fundamental curriculum to the specific needs of various foreign audiences.
Homburger was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, on December 18, 1926. In 1939, at age 12, he was sent to England as part of the last Kindertransport, a rescue mission that sent thousands of Jewish children to the United Kingdom, where they were placed in foster homes to keep them safe during World War II. He spent the war years living with a British family on a farm and attending school at Eastbourne College. He remained in close touch with that family the rest of his life.
As a young man he emigrated to the United States, where he was finally reunited with his parents in New York City. He received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the Cooper Union in 1950, and a Master of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1951. He was naturalized in 1951 and served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1951 to 1955, working first as a construction and pavement design engineer and later on active duty with stints in Japan and Korea. In May of 1955, Homburger joined the staff of the institute.
In 1958, Homburger married the late Arlene Levinson, whom he had met at an International House alumni event. Both had great affection for I-House and were generous supporters: Homburger’s former resident room, 760, was dedicated in his honor in 2006, while I-House’s south patio was named in memory of his late wife.
Besides traffic engineering, he was passionate about music, and he and his wife were committed supporters of Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam, a village in Israel where Jewish and Arab families live together in a peace-building effort.
Homburger is survived by his son, Paul, and daughter-in-law, Donna; his daughter, Joanna, and son-in-law Britton Snipes; and five grandchildren — Julian, Chris, Heather, Meghan, and Brianna.
Adib Kanafani
William L. Garrison
2011