Engineering Inc - September/October 2017 - 39

CK
BY GERRY DONOHUE

Sam Schwartz is not your typical
traffic engineer. What traffic engineer,
after all, would say his proudest achievement is the bridge he didn't build?
In 1988, as first deputy commissioner
of the New York City Department of
Transportation, Schwartz had to close
the 85-year-old Williamsburg Bridge,
which spans the East River between
Brooklyn and Manhattan, after inspectors found dangerous deterioration.
With repair costs topping $700 million,
the city and state turned to the federal
government. The U.S. Department of
Transportation (USDOT) was willing to
provide funding but insisted that a new
bridge be built because the existing structure was unsafe and substandard due
to its 9-foot traffic lanes.
Schwartz disagreed for three reasons. He didn't want to build a bigger bridge
because it would put more cars on the road in the nation's most crowded
city. Building a bridge with 12-foot lanes and shoulders would also require
razing the neighborhoods at each end-Brooklyn's Williamsburg and Manhattan's Lower East Side. And finally, he disputed that the narrow lanes were
"substandard."
Schwartz and his team analyzed crashes on the bridge and found that accidents actually occurred at a higher rate in the wider stretches of the bridge. "My
explanation," he says, "is that when lanes get very narrow, motorists drive more
carefully." Armed with that analysis, Schwartz swayed the USDOT and rebuilt
the bridge within its existing footprint.
"The Williamsburg Bridge, narrow lanes and all, was saved," he says. "And so
were Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, which are today two of the most
vibrant and prosperous neighborhoods in the entire country."
According to ACEC/New York President Jay Simson, that is typical
Schwartz. "From his days working in the city DOT to today with his own firm,
Sam has always looked beyond the specifics of each individual project, focusing on the bigger picture," Simson says. "And that focus is supported by a solid
foundation of facts and experience."
SERVING THE PUBLIC

Schwartz came by that experience honestly, driving a cab in New York City
during the mid-1960s while he studied physics at Brooklyn College. He went
on to get a graduate degree in transportation engineering at the University
of Pennsylvania, and then in 1971, started working for the New York City
Department of Traffic as a junior engineer.
It was a tough time in the Big Apple. The city was cash-strapped and its
infrastructure was deteriorating at an alarming rate. In his first few years, he had
to deal with the West Side Highway collapse, the brush with municipal bankruptcy and the city's tangled efforts to conform to the Clean Air Act. Working
with Mayor John Lindsay, he developed a plan to ban cars from Midtown
Manhattan, only to have it tabled weeks before its implementation.
In 1982, he was named New York City traffic commissioner, where he led
a much-publicized fight against parking-fine-scofflaw diplomats at the United
Nations. Then in 1986, when a kickback scandal brought down almost everyone else in the city's Department of Transportation hierarchy, he was named
first deputy commissioner of the city's Department of Transportation, as well
as chief engineer. It was during this tenure that he fought to save the Williamsburg Bridge.
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2017

ENGINEERING INC.

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