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In
Memoriam
Louis Riggs: builder of BART and bridges worldwide
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| Louis
Riggs (left) at a 1948 Berkeley Engineering dinner with an
unidentified colleague. In addition to his work on BART, Riggs
worked on Atlanta’s MARTA rapid transit system and delayed
his retirement until he was successful in getting the train
system extended to the Atlanta airport. |
Louis Riggs (B.S. ’48 CE), who helped build BART and Europe’s
longest bridge, died June 12, 2002, in Lafayette, California,
at age 79.
When World War II interrupted his studies, Riggs served as a bombardier
in Italy and spent several months as a prisoner of war in Bulgaria.
He returned home and finished his Berkeley degree in 1948. President
Harry Truman spoke at his graduation ceremony.
Riggs joined Tudor Engineering in 1952 and became president in
1963. It was through his work at Tudor that he helped build the
Bay Area Rapid Transit system, the first of a new generation of
modern transit systems in the U.S. His company designed many of
the aerial tracks and bridges that formed the early structural
foundation of the BART system.
In the 1960s and ’70s, he traveled extensively, building
bridges, highways, dams, ports and rapid transit systems in Hawaii,
Peru, Guam, Washington state, Oregon, the Philippines, and other
sites. The project he was most proud of was the foundation engineering
for the Tagus River Bridge in Lisbon, Portugal, the longest suspension
bridge in Europe, with a main span of 3,324 feet. At the time
it was completed in 1966, the bridge had the deepest piers of
any pier bridge in the world, sunk to 262 feet.
Among his many honors, Riggs was a member of the National Academy
of Engineering, president of the Society of American Military
Engineers and the UC Engineering Society, and winner of the Berkeley
Engineering Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award in 1984. He
is survived by his wife Patricia, his children Jim Riggs and Katherine
Stimson, and four grandchildren.
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