Martin Wachs (1941–2021) was an American professor emeritus of

Urban Planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and of City and Regional Planning and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He began his career in university teaching in 1968 and retired from teaching in 2006, to work at the Rand Corporation until 2010.

Early years

Martin Wachs was born June 8, 1941. He attended City College, City University of New York, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1963. He received his master's degree (1965) and his PhD in civil engineering from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

in 1967.

Career

He taught at

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

as assistant professor of systems engineering, then as assistant professor of civil engineering at Northwestern University before heading west to California. He was an associate professor in a newly founded Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at

in 1971, the start of a long career in the University of California system. Besides teaching in Los Angeles, he spent 10 years at UC Berkeley, with the

Institute of Transportation Studies The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at the University of California's Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, and Los Angeles campuses are centers for research, education, and scholarship in the fields of transportation planning and engineering. Faculty ...

. He was one of the earliest scholars to address transportation's relationship to social equity, environmental quality, and community values. He wrote 180 articles and four books on subjects related to transportation and land use. Wachs was awarded the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

for his exceptional scholarship in Architecture, Planning and Design and the Carey Award for service to the

Transportation Research Board The Transportation Research Board (TRB) is a division of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, formerly the National Research Council of the United States, which serves as an independent adviser to the President of the Unite ...

. He retired from teaching in 2006, to work at the Rand Corporation until 2010. In recognition of his extraordinary service, Wachs was honored by the

American Institute of Certified Planners The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) is the American Planning Association's professional institute. AICP certifies professionals in the United States in the field of town planning and assists planners in the areas of ethics, profess ...

and the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Death

Martin Wachs died at his home in Los Angeles on April 12, 2021, in the midst of collaborating on papers with colleagues.

Books

* ''Transportation for the Elderly: Changing Lifestyles-Changing Needs''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. * ''Ethics in Planning''. New Brunswick: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, 1985. * ''The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life'', University of Michigan Press, 1992. * ''Transportation Planning on Trial: The Clean Air Act and Travel Forecasting''. Sage Publications, 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wachs, Martin UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science faculty 2021 deaths Transport engineers 1941 births Public transport activists