Ben Fried started as a Streetsblog reporter in 2008 and led the site as editor-in-chief from 2010 to 2018. He lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, with his wife.
Ben Fried
Recent Posts
Get Your Tickets to the 10-Year Bash for Streetsblog and Streetfilms
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Ten years ago, Mark Gorton, Aaron Naparstek, and Clarence Eckerson started a new media venture — Streetsblog and Streetfilms. The idea was to show that cities work best when streets are designed for people, not cars, and to press public officials to bring street design and transportation policy into the 21st century. No one had seen […]
Bratton Resigns. Will James O’Neill Do Better on Street Safety?
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Police Commissioner Bill Bratton announced today that he will leave NYPD next month, after a little more than two and a half years as police chief under Mayor de Blasio. He will be succeeded by James O’Neill, a career officer who currently serves as chief of department, the senior uniformed position within NYPD. On traffic safety, Bratton will […]
Stuck With Slow Bus Service? Cuomo Is Completely Oblivious to Your Pain
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You can tell Governor Cuomo doesn’t get on a New York City bus unless it’s for a photo-op about on-board USB ports. The latest evidence came yesterday, after a coalition of transit advocates released a major report on the deterioration of bus service in New York City. With bus speeds declining, ridership has dropped 16 percent […]
The New York of 2016 Needs the Wide, Generous Sidewalks of 1906
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The Times ran a feature on the pedestrian crush in New York City today, and as good as the photos are, they don’t do the situation justice. To get a sense of just how inadequate the sidewalks are in Midtown, you need to go there — or failing that, watch this Streetfilm from 2009 with narration by Streetsblog publisher Mark […]
Bike-Share NIMBY Flyer: Make Cobble Hill Great Again
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A tipster spotted this flyer on Douglass Street in Cobble Hill, where Citi Bike will be expanding this year: Makes perfect sense. Keep bike-share at bay, and the neighborhood can be suspended in time. David Greenfield and the MTA won’t mess with F train service. Supermarkets will stay in business. The meddlesome construction of housing for other people […]
Albany Failed to Act on Safe Streets, So de Blasio’s Gotta Do It on His Own
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With the Albany session over and legislative leaders failing to advance a bill to add 60 speed cameras in NYC, 2016 is going to be the first full calendar year since 2012 in which the city does not expand its automated speed enforcement program. Advocates put together an impressive coalition for speed cameras, and they’ll be back fighting […]
10 Years of Streetsblog and Streetfilms — Celebrate With Us November 14
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Ten years ago today, Aaron Naparstek hit “publish” on the first official Streetsblog post. “The $46 Million Parking Perk” was an exposé of the city’s parking placard system based on the work of analyst Bruce Schaller. I don’t have a screengrab of the story as it appeared that day, but here’s a look at the […]
DOT Mobility Report: As NYC Grows, So Are Transit and Bicycling
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With New York City’s population swelling to a record size, subways and bikes now account for about 700,000 more trips each day than 16 years ago, according to a new report from NYC DOT [PDF]. Car trips into the Manhattan core, meanwhile, are declining, but so is citywide bus ridership. DOT’s “New York City Mobility Report” follows in the footsteps of the […]
The Upside of Seattle’s Transit Expansion: High Capacity
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The Seattle region’s 62-mile transit expansion plan has some serious flaws. Namely, the city of Seattle, where the ridership needs are greatest, gets short shrift compared to suburban areas. Zach Shaner at Seattle Transit Blog argues that ST3, as the plan is called, also gets a lot right. Instead of running on defunct freight tracks or operating at-grade […]
New Yorkers Tell Streetfilms Why They’re Biking More Than Ever
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By every metric, today New Yorkers are biking more than ever. So to mark Bike to Work Day, Clarence Eckerson went over to the Transportation Alternatives commuter station by the Queensboro Bridge to ask people if they’re biking now more than five years ago, and why. Here’s what they told him. There’s a lot of […]
Bike to Work Day Open Thread
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It keeps going… and going… #bikenyc pic.twitter.com/v6cfyU8pyg — Brooklyn Spoke (@BrooklynSpoke) May 20, 2016 Happy Bike to Work Day, NYC. Here’s part of one light cycle at the Sands Street entry to the Manhattan Bridge bike path, footage courtesy of Doug Gordon. Imagine the traffic jam if all these people were in cars. Clarence was out with his […]
Talking Street Safety and Vision Zero on Inside City Hall With Errol Louis
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Thanks to Errol Louis and the team at NY1’s Inside City Hall for having me on yesterday with Dana Lerner of Families for Safe Streets and transit reporter Jose Martinez. The show reaches a very influential audience, and Dana and I both appreciated having the platform to talk about the state of street safety in NYC and the […]