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
City Hall Wants Council Members to Beef Up “Bikes in Buildings” Bills
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No matter how well you lock up your bike in NYC, if you leave it outside for any significant amount of time, you never know what will be left when you get back. For secure storage, nothing beats a spot inside. But thanks to a bizarre aversion to bicycles shared by many landlords and property managers, a […]
How Did Straphangers Make Out in the Cuomo-de Blasio MTA Deal?
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On Saturday, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio reached a deal to close the gap in the MTA’s five-year, $29 billion capital program, with the state pitching in $8.3 billion and the city contributing $2.5 billion. The agreement ends a drawn out political fight between the governor and the mayor. But enough about politics. How do transit […]
If Cuomo’s MTA Raids Are No Big Deal, Why Won’t He Promise to Stop?
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Andrew Cuomo has a credibility problem. He wants the city of New York to pitch in more for the MTA capital program, but Bill de Blasio doesn’t trust him with the city’s money. Why should he, when Cuomo has a well-documented habit of diverting dedicated MTA funds to cover other state obligations. De Blasio has been asking […]
Thursday: Come On Over to Streetsblog’s Goodbye Party for Stephen Miller
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At the end of the week, Stephen Miller is hanging up his Streetsblog cleats after three-plus years of powerhouse reporting. Before we post his final byline, come join us at Streetsblog HQ Thursday evening for a farewell party celebrating Stephen’s time here and wishing him the best as he heads over to Council Member Jimmy van Bramer’s staff. […]
Pope Francis and the Flexibility of Our Streets
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Add Pope Francis’s tour of New York to the long list of carmageddon scares that successfully frightened off would-be motorists. I grabbed these two shots of traffic from Google Maps, and despite all the alarming car detour icons, you can see that traffic was lighter during peak Francis than it normally is on a New York City weekday. While […]
Streetsblog Is Hiring: Cover the Evolution of NYC Streets and Transportation
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After three tremendous years covering the Streetsblog NYC beat, Stephen Miller is moving on next month to serve as Council Member Jimmy van Bramer’s legislative and budget director. New York City government is gaining a special talent, and we’re going to miss him. Among Stephen’s many gifts are his knack for putting sharp questions to public officials, his aptitude for quickly […]
Bratton: Times Square Plazas Will Stay
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The de Blasio administration has finally put to rest the idea of yanking out the Times Square pedestrian plazas. Was that so hard? Erik Engquist at Crain’s reports that Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said City Hall will see through the $55 million capital construction project to cast the plazas in concrete, which has been in […]
Don’t Believe Team Cuomo’s Spin on the MTA “Lockbox”
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This is rich. When Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Daily News he’s wary of upping the city’s contribution to the MTA capital program because Governor Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly raided dedicated transit funds, MTA Chair Tom Prendergast said don’t worry, you can trust the governor: “This is nothing more than rhetoric from a mayor who refuses to […]
Who’s in Charge of Streets at City Hall?
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A few things we learned today about how important decisions regarding streets and public space get formulated in the de Blasio administration: The whole flap over removing the Times Square plazas was the result of Police Commissioner Bill Bratton acting freelance. Bratton told the Wall Street Journal he planned his plaza outburst to the word (“to smoke people out”) […]
Eyes on the Street: Signs That the Pulaski Bikeway Will Really Happen
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A reader sends in this shot of the southbound side of the Pulaski Bridge, taken yesterday morning. That was the day NYC DOT said construction would start on the two-way protected bike lane over the bridge, which has been beset by delays until recently. Not that long ago it looked like construction of the bikeway, […]
Cuomo’s Brazen Politicization of the MTA
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On Friday, MTA Chair Tom Prendergast used the occasion of a G train derailment to badger Bill de Blasio about upping the city’s contribution to the MTA capital program. His statement resembled the reaction from the TWU, beneficiaries of generous contract terms bestowed by Governor Andrew Cuomo last year. Prendergast delivered the same message on Sunday at […]
Giving Up on Public Spaces Is Exactly What NYC Did in “The Bad Old Days”
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Normally Streetsblog would just ignore Steve Cuozzo’s rant yesterday about the evils of giving New Yorkers more room to walk and sit. But yanking out public space is a surprisingly credible threat these days, so here goes. If you missed it, the nut of Cuozzo’s piece is that because he saw some homeless people sitting on benches […]