Robert A. Olmsted, the first director of long-term planning for New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and a transportation engineer, builder, historian and industry mentor for more than 60 years, died on Aug. 16 in Manhattan. He was 85.
Olmsted—a descendent of Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York City’s Central Park—began his own industry career in the late 1940s as a Cornell University engineering graduate on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. A protégé of Ole Singstad, the innovative structure’s chief engineer, Olmsted went on to work for other New York-area transportation agencies and on global engineering assignments for the former TAMS Consultants. After his MTA retirement in 1989, he continued as an industry consultant until his death. Olmsted taught urban mass transportation at several area universities for 30 years and was a prolific author. Jay H. Walder, an MTA veteran who was named by New York Gov. David Paterson to become agency chairman in 2009, credits Olmsted “for much of what I learned.”