Tens of millions of LA drivers trek through the notoriously bad LA traffic each day, and lots of of them travel over the multi-level stack interchange connecting the Santa Monica and San Diego freeways every day, whether for work or errands, without giving the interchange a second thought. The official name of that interchange, likely unknown to many LA residents, is the Marilyn Jorgenson Reece Memorial Interchange, and the story behind it’s price knowing.
Born in 1926, Marilyn Jorgenson Reece earned a civil engineering degree from the University of Minnesota in 1948. She moved to LA soon after, taking a position with the California State Division of Highways — the agency that eventually became Caltrans. Reese spent most of her profession because the only woman within the room.
In 1954, Reese sat for the Skilled Engineer examination after completing the six years of required field experience. She passed and have become the primary woman in California history to carry a full civil engineering license. The Division of Highways also eventually made her its first female resident engineer for construction projects — one other title with no precedent. Marilyn Reece’s most vital task was the design of the I-10 and I-405 interchange, which opened in 1964. Not only was it a large project, nevertheless it was also the primary interchange in California designed by a female engineer. What’s more, the project was removed from straightforward. It required handling one of the vital congested junctions in a city already defined by its freeways, while accommodating vehicles moving at sustained high speeds.
Immortalizing an industry breakthrough
Reece’s design philosophy for the project was deliberate. She inbuilt long, sweeping curves specifically so drivers would not must brake sharply through the interchange — thus keeping traffic moving more easily. She described the lead to a 1995 Los Angeles Times interview as “very airy,” contrasting it with interchanges she considered cluttered and loop-heavy. Governor Pat Brown awarded her the Governor’s Design Excellence Award in 1962 for the work.
Reece died in May 2004 at 77. 4 years later, in 2008, Caltrans dedicated the interchange in her name — the Marilyn Jorgenson Reece Memorial Interchange. The American Society of Civil Engineers had recognized her as a life member.
Her colleague Carol Schumaker, who worked alongside her on the I-10/405 project, went on to design the I-405/I-605/SR-22 complex, one other one among LA’s large interchanges. The interchange she built handles a whole bunch of hundreds of vehicles a day. LA residents, just like the individuals who live in a number of other major cities, lose hours of their day in traffic, but with successful interchanges, that point can decrease, and when the roads aren’t as congested, it may well help things flow a lot better.
This Article First Appeared At www.jalopnik.com
