May 2, 1906
Thomas F. Airis, who would become director of the District of Columbia’s Department of Highways and Traffic (a predecessor of the present-day District Department of Transportation) was born in the town of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He earned his degree in, civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin. In 1929, Airis joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the Detroit District as a civil engineer. He remained there until 1943, serving in various capacities in river and harbor, airfield, flood control, and ordinance plants work.
With the United States still heavily engulfed in fighting in World War II at this time, Airis served as an officer and troop commander in the USACE in the Pacific Theater. He was assigned to Greece after the war, and spent his time there supervising extensive road, airfield, and port construction programs throughout the northern region of that country. During the Korean War just a few years later, Airis was recalled to active duty in the Army. He served during this time in Saudi Arabia, where he oversaw the construction of an air base.
In 1954, Airis was made area engineer and in this role supervised construction projects for the United States’ segment of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. This large-scale effort was completed in 1959 and involved a considerable amount of work on locks, canals, ship channels, roads, and bridges.
In the same year that the Saint Lawrence Seaway was completed, Airis became deputy director of the District of Columbia’s Department of Highways and Traffic. He was named this agency’s director in 1964.
While serving in that position, Airis firmly established himself as a central figure in discussions about construction of the Interstate Highway System that was very much in progress both locally and nationwide at the time. He frequently testified before Congress about those issues and others. Airis also tackled the urgent traffic challenges that increasingly faced the nation’s capital during this era.
.Airis voiced support for the shared role that highways and mass transit could play in alleviating local traffic congestion, and he was instrumental in the efforts to begin building the region’s Metrorail system. He was also a staunch advocate for more highways in the city, arguing strongly for that option in a variety of community meetings and other local forums.
Airis also found time to be active in the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), serving on the Transport and Personnel Development Committee and as first vice president on the Executive Committee. He was elected the 61st president of AASHO at the association’s annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, in November 1972.
Airis’s high-profile activities as president included emphasizing the crucial need for traffic safety. He likewise helped promote the perspectives and priorities of the states with respect to the legislative measure that ultimately became the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, which provided funds for existing Interstate routes and new urban and rural roads across the country and also for a highway safety improvement program.
During his tenure as president, Airis also spearheaded the assessment of long-term structural changes that led to the association being renamed the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to reflect its shift from a highways-only focus to a larger multi-modal mission on behalf of the states.
This transition was formally approved at the association’s annual meeting in Los Angeles in November 1973. As Airis concluded his service as the last president of AASHO, he took time during that meeting to highlight the long-term significance of the transition. “In making these changes, I think the association is keeping abreast of the times and stepping into a role that is needed,” Airis said to those in attendance. “The emphasis now, as in the past, is on state officials.”
After stepping down from his job in the District of Columbia the following year, Airis worked for an engineering consulting firm in the area over the next decade. He died on August 7, 1991, in Edgartown, Massachusetts, at the age of 87.
Photo Credit: American Highways magazine (January 1973)
Additional information on the history of the present-day District Department of Transportation and its predecessors is available at https://ddotlibrary.omeka.net/history-of-ddot and https://ddotlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/41
Transportation History 
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