Samuel I. Schwartz, also known as Gridlock Sam, is an American transportation engineer, formerly the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Traffic Commissioner, notable for popularizing the phrase "

gridlock Gridlock is a form of traffic congestion where continuous queues of vehicles block an entire network of intersecting streets, bringing traffic in all directions to a complete standstill. The term originates from a situation possible in a grid ...

Life and career

After graduating from

Brooklyn Technical High School Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech and administratively designated High School 430, is a public specialized high school in New York City that specializes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is on ...

in 1965, Schwartz was educated at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

(BS Physics) and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

(MSCE), and first worked as a New York City cabbie before being hired by the City of New York in 1971. He served as NYC Traffic Commissioner from 1982 to 1986, and when the traffic department became subsumed by the Department of Transportation he held the second-in-command post of First Deputy Commissioner and Chief Engineer from 1986-1990. While employed with the city, he attempted to introduce bicycle lanes and public plazas. They were vetoed at the last minute by then-mayor

John Lindsay John Vliet Lindsay (; November 24, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, the mayor of New York City, and a candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regu ...

. He earned the nickname Gridlock Sam during the 1980 transit strike when he developed a series of transportation contingency plans, called the Grid-Lock Prevention Program. It was under Schwartz's watch that the city almost became the first city to implement

congestion pricing Congestion pricing or congestion charges is a system of surcharging users of public goods that are subject to congestion through excess demand, such as through higher peak charges for use of bus services, electricity, metros, railways, tel ...

. The city's bridges had not been tolled since 1911 and beginning in 1973 he worked with Mayor Lindsay to reintroduce them. Even with a change in leadership (Mayor Lindsay was replaced by Abe Beame in 1974) it looked like the tolls would be reinstated. However, an act of Congress nixed the proposal in 1977. See:

Congestion pricing in New York City Congestion pricing in New York City, also known as the Central Business District Tolling Program or CBDTP, began on January 5, 2025. It applies to most motor vehicular traffic using the central business district area of Manhattan south of 6 ...

. After he left city government around 1996, he started his own firm. He writes columns for New York City's '' Daily News'', lower Manhattan’s ''Downtown Express'', The '' Queens Chronicle'' and in the Yiddish ''News Report'' as Gridlock Shmuel. He also tweets, and blogs for the

Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the ...

and ''

Engineering News-Record The ''Engineering News-Record'' (widely known as ''ENR'') is an American weekly magazine that provides news, analysis, data and opinion for the construction industry worldwide. It is widely regarded as one of the construction industry's most au ...

''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Sam Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Brooklyn College alumni University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Transport engineers American civil engineers American columnists American taxi drivers