Adolf Darlington May

1927 - 2023

March 25, 1927 - August 16, 2023 In Dolf's exceptional professional life, he pioneered the science of Highway Transportation in Civil Engineering. He created and received the first PhD in the field in 1952 at Purdue University. His work has impacted all of us in the design, operation and simulation of highways, rural roads, urban streets and intersections.
He received the Theodore M. Matson Award (1992), the Transportation Research Board's 1994 Distinguished Lectureship, the American Society of Civil Engineering's Francis C. Turner Lecturer, a Caltrans 1987 Award for Excellence in Research, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1990. He published over 300 technical papers and reports.
"Many of his papers are classics, such as A Friction Concept of Traffic Flow (1959)," observed Donald S. Berry, Murphy Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University. "His 1967 Simulation Study of Load Factor at Signalized Intersections…literally created a sensation," wrote Paul P. Jovanis of the University of California at Davis. In 2018 the East Bay Times featured an article titled, "Dolf May: Traffic World Legend Who Invented Metering Lights."
Dolf was passionate about his work as a researcher and educator, retiring from the University of California at Berkeley as professor emeritus after nearly four decades. He often commented that his career had spanned the age of the automobile.
He supervised the research of dozens of doctoral candidates, mentoring and befriending many, particularly his international students. Often his was the first American home they'd been invited into. Fast family friendships remain.
Dolf would always say proudly with a big smile that he was a Little Rock, Arkansas, boy, born and raised. With a Mississippi mother and an Ohio father, he embraced both traditions and made peace with any contradictions as he matured.
In Naval Officer Training School at Colorado College, he met Margaret Ann Folsom and they married in 1948.
Church, generally Methodist or Congregational UCC, was important to him, as was his volunteering at the YMCA in Chicago and in Richmond, California. Selling his Chicago home in 1965, he caused an uproar as he withheld his permission for the real estate agent to refuse to show the house to people in minority groups.
During his early career years, he taught at Clarkson University, Michigan State and Northwestern. He also developed freeway control systems at Thompson-Ramo-Woolridge and, ever at the frontier of knowledge, worked with early computer systems as the first Director of the Chicago Area Expressway Surveillance Project in 1962. He traveled extensively worldwide as well, both for work and pleasure. He knew his way around nearly every city in the world as he had consulted on many of their traffic plans.
Dolf and Margaret moved to The Samarkand in Santa Barbara in 2005 and enjoyed life there immensely. Dolf and friends created the Amazing Grays and the Sunshine Cart to provide visits, support and wheelchair walks for residents in skilled nursing. He continued living very independently for years and then was lovingly and well cared for in the last year.
He is predeceased by his sister, Ida May Duhart, and survived by Margaret, his wife of 74 years, his four children, six grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.
A Memorial Service will be held at Samarkand on September 5 at 10:30. Contributions may be made to the Samarkand Staff Appreciation Fund.