Rites Planned for Freeway Engineer Hugo Winter

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Jan. 21 at Lake Avenue Congregational Church in Pasadena for Hugo H. Winter, who in his 42 years of full-time service with the city became the engineer in charge of wheedling freeway access and agreement from the dozens of cities in Los Angeles County.

Winter was 94 when he died in his sleep Dec. 27 at a Los Angeles retirement home.

A native of San Diego, Winter started work with the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering in 1917 as a mechanical draftsman. After World War I Army service in France, where he was wounded, he returned to city employment and for the next 45 years held a variety of posts.

He educated himself in the skills of municipal engineering and rose to chief structural engineer in the Bridge and Structural Design Division; principal structural engineer in the Rapid Transit Design Division, principal civil engineer in the Street and Freeway Design Division and finally, assistant engineer of design for the Bureau of Engineering.

He first discussed what he called a web of high-speed freeways linking downtown Los Angeles with the Harbor Area as early as 1943 and by the 1950s had become the individual responsible for a comprehensive freeway plan for both the city and the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles County.

Although he worked successfully with nearly all of Los Angeles County’s cities in negotiating freeway routes, one city became a holdout. It was his hometown, South Pasadena, where today the 710 Freeway still comes to a sudden halt.

Winter retired in 1962 but continued to work as a city consultant for several years.

Survivors include three sons, nine grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.