Alan Voorhees Alan Manners Voorhees ( December 17 , 1922 – December 18 , 2005 ) was a transportation engineer and urban planner who designed many large public works in the United States . Voorhees was born in Highland Park , New Jersey . Early life . During World War II , he left his studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ( RPI ) to join the United States Navy as an officer in what was called the " Underwater Demolition Team 11 " ( UDT - 11 ) , a precursor to the U . S . Navy SEALs . He spent much of the war mapping shoreline defenses in the Pacific . After the atomic bombing of Nagasaki , Voorhees ' unit was sent in to inspect the city , making him one of the first Americans to see the bomb ' s aftermath . For his military service he received the Silver Star , the Bronze Star , and the Presidential Unit Citation . After the war , Voorhees continued his education , graduating from RPI in 1947 and then earning his master ' s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949 . Transportation planning . In 1952 , Voorhees came to Washington , D . C . to work for the nonprofit Automobile Safety Foundation . While studying traffic in Baltimore , Voorhees developed a mathematical formula to predict traffic patterns based on land use . This formula has been instrumental in the design of numerous transportation and public works projects around the world . He wrote " A General Theory of Traffic Movement " ( 1956 ) , which applied the gravity model to trip distribution , which translates trips generated in an area to a matrix that identifies the number of trips from each origin to each destination , which can then be loaded onto the network . In 1961 , he began his own engineering firm ( Alan M . Voorhees & Associates ) which eventually grew to have branches in ten U . S . cities . He was involved in the design of many subway system s including those in São Paulo , Hong Kong , Caracas , and Washington , D . C . . Voorhees sold his firm in 1967 and became the dean of the College of Architecture , Art and Urban Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle in 1971 . The firm went on to be project manager of the Boston Transportation Planning Review . Voorhees invested in Micros Corporation and its electronic cash register in the late 1960s . Voorhees designed the street grid for land that was reclaimed in lower Manhattan in New York City , connecting new streets to centuries - old already existing roads and to the Brooklyn Bridge . He was also one of the early designers of the United States ' Interstate Highway System and helped determine how the highways would cut through or bypass urban areas . Later life . In 1979 , following airline deregulation , Voorhees helped found Atlantic Southeast Airlines , which was later bought by Delta Air Lines . Voorhees received the first Harland Bartholomew Award of the American Society of Civil Engineers as the engineer who has contributed most to urban planning , and was honored with the establishment of the Alan M . Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University in 1998 , and helped found the Voorhees Computing Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . He was chairman of the board of Autometric Corp . , an aerospace company based in Northern Virginia . Autometric was later sold to Boeing . He was an angel investor of Lizardtech , the software of which was excellent for digital mapping and GIS purposes . Voorhees was an avid collector of historical maps , amassing an impressive collection of over 300 maps focused on the history of Virginia . He donated this valuable collection , worth millions of dollars , to the Library of Congress , the Library of Virginia , and the Virginia Historical Society . Voorhees believed government could greatly improve the human condition , and was an early supporter of the Council for Excellence in Government . Voorhees was heavily involved with the Voorhees College , an Historical Black College in Denmark , SC . Voorhees often provided funding for campus improvement projects as well as scholarship funds for the students . Voorhees and his family helped start the successful and family - oriented Westmoreland Berry Farm , located in the Northern Neck of Virginia . In the late 1990s , Voorhees started a project to automate county government services in Richmond County , Virginia . The system he supported involved scanning thousands of land records in the county clerk ' s office and connecting these with data from the county planning office ( topo maps , sewer and water overlays , satellite views , etc . ) and tax office . The land records were then sent via the Internet to be archived at the Library of Virginia . He spent over $ 600 , 000 on this project . Voorhees was concerned with environmental protection . He donated over of land along the Potomac river in Virginia to become the Voorhees nature preserve . His interest in government automation was designed to make it easier to identify environmentally sensitive areas and ensure that development took them into account . Voorhees died in a hotel he owned in Richmond , Virginia from an apparent stroke at the age of 83 .