Sigvald Johannesson
civil engineer

Sigvald Johannesson (1877–1953) was a civil engineer best known for his design of the Pulaski Skyway.
Johannesson was a graduate of the University of Copenhagen who later worked on the London Underground. He emigrated to the United States and worked on the North River Tunnels and the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad tunnels under the Hudson River. He joined the New Jersey Highway Department (now the New Jersey Department of Transportation) during the early development of the Skyway project and is considered to be responsible for its ultimate design. Johannesson worked the agency until his retirement in 1948 as head of the Division of Planning and Economics. In 1931, he published a seminal work entitled Highway Economics. He died in 1953.
The public source identifies “Sigvald Johannesson” as civil engineer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sigvald, Johannesson and civil.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7513341. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1953, 1948 and 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sigvald Johannesson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.