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
Can You Believe a Few People Are Still Suing to Rip Out This Bike Lane?
| | 16 Comments
It was just about five years ago that attorneys with the law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, working pro bono on behalf of some people with ties to Senator Chuck Schumer, filed suit against the city for installing the Prospect Park West bike lane. In August 2011, Kings County Supreme Court Judge Bert Bunyan dismissed […]
BQX Streetcar Doesn’t Make Any More Sense Now Than It Did Yesterday
| | 58 Comments
Today Mayor de Blasio rolled out the full court press for his Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar proposal, known as BQX. A story in the Times compared the street-running BQX to Jersey’s Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, which runs mostly on exclusive rail rights-of-way. The City Hall press shop sent out waves of endorsements from various elected officials, advocates, business executives, developers, […]
The Key for Park Slope to Keep Its Big Grocery Store: Less Parking
| | 13 Comments
The notion that New York City housing construction shouldn’t be weighed down by mandatory parking minimums got a combative response from some City Council members at a hearing today. Streetsblog will have a thorough round-up of who said what tomorrow morning. In the meantime, here’s a quick detour to Park Slope for a related story about how parking rules […]
4 Reasons a $2.5 Billion Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Doesn’t Add Up
| | 125 Comments
Later today, Mayor de Blasio is going to deliver his State of the City speech, and one centerpiece is expected to be a new streetcar running from Sunset Park to Astoria along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront. It’s an idea that’s surfaced repeatedly in one form or another as developers have transformed sections of the waterfront into new residential neighborhoods. As alluring […]
3 Ways NYC Can Avoid Future Snow Removal Travesties for Peds and Cyclists
| | 135 Comments
Here we are a whole work week after Winter Storm Jonas dumped two feet of snow on New York, and the streets are still not passable for a lot of New Yorkers who get around without driving. In the beginning of the week, the biggest travesties were the snow barriers at street corners and the uncleared bus […]
A Closer Look at the Drop in Severe Traffic Injuries in NYC
| | 2 Comments
This graph from City Hall’s Vision Zero Year Two Report [PDF], released yesterday, is worth pulling out for a closer look. It shows the number of people who were killed or severely injured in traffic each year. Injuries tracked by this metric “include loss of mobility, traumatic brain injuries and amputations,” according to the report. Tracking […]
Less Service on the L Train? Wring More Efficiency Out of the Streets
| | 48 Comments
Gothamist dropped a bombshell earlier this week: To repair Sandy-inflicted damage to the L train tubes between Manhattan and Brooklyn, the MTA will have to suspend service through the tunnel for large chunks of time. The repairs can get done fastest if the MTA halts service around the clock, but that would still last one to two […]
Someone’s Gotta Pay for the Cuomo Transpo Plan, And It Won’t Be Motorists
| | 7 Comments
Andrew Cuomo ran down his list of big transportation projects in the State of the State Address yesterday, and despite the billions it will take to build everything on his agenda, the governor didn’t say anything about how he’ll raise the money to pay for it. He did work in a line about toll cuts for Thruway drivers, […]
The Phantom Pedestrian Menace
| | 25 Comments
In case you missed it, here’s the blog post by TWU 100 spokesperson Pete Donohue that set off a local Twitterstorm yesterday, in its entirety: Pedestrian Menace BY PETE DONOHUE JANUARY 11 — Pedestrians are a menace — to themselves. Not all the time, but more often than you might think. “Dangerous pedestrian choices,” including crossing the street […]
Northeast Ohio to State DOT: Road Expansions Getting Out of Hand
| | No Comments
If you could point to one aspect of American transportation policy that’s more disastrous than all the others, expanding highways and roads to the point of absurdity is probably it. In northeast Ohio, cities like Cleveland and Akron were hollowed out by highway building, but the state DOT still privileges road expansion instead of maintenance or investment in transit, […]
Straightening Out the Vestigial Kinks in Bus Routes
| | No Comments
Just a few months after Houston reorganized its bus network to provide more frequent service where more people can use it — without increasing the operating budget — ridership is already on the upswing. A lot goes in to bus network analysis and how to put scarce resources to better use. But some inefficiencies clearly stand out on a […]
Cuomo’s “Ambitious” Transport Program: a Hodgepodge of Pandering
| | 9 Comments
Try to picture this: Governor Cuomo, announcing a big MTA funding commitment, promises subway and bus fares won’t rise for four years. And in fact, people who buy monthly MetroCards will get a de facto fare cut via tax credits. Infrastructure upgrades and lower fares — sweet deal. Hard to imagine? For New York City transit […]