M. Breivogel; Led Planning for County, City

Milton Breivogel, the man who steered Los Angeles County planning during 14 years of enormous expansion and who began many of the programs of rapid transit, freeway construction, low-cost housing and open spaces for neighborhood parks that exist today, has died.

Breivogel was 86 when he died May 18 in Los Angeles. He had retired in 1967, although he served the City of Los Angeles as a zoning code consultant in 1968.

He had been principal planner for the city from 1941 to 1953, the year he assumed the county position. During his tenure on the city staff, he helped guide the first freeway plan through the City Council. He also was credited with the zoning guides Los Angeles adopted after World War II.

A native of Wisconsin, Breivogel received civil engineering degrees from the University of Wisconsin and worked as a consultant, helping to complete a master plan for Madison, Wis., before coming to Los Angeles. He went to work as city planner for $300 a month and was faced with the growing traffic snarls that were to have been resolved by the freeway system he advocated.

When he joined the county staff, it was to head what then was the nation’s largest county planning department, charting the growth of a metropolitan region with a population of 7 million.

Survivors include his wife, Frances, a brother and two sisters. Services are scheduled in Wisconsin.