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
Steve Levin Has No Position on the Prospect Park West Bike Lane
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Following last week’s double committee vote in favor of DOT’s suggested changes for the Prospect Park West bike lane, the proposal to add raised pedestrian refuges to the redesign is set to go to the full board on April 13. At this point, just about everyone has weighed in on this project. The Community Board […]
Top Bloomberg Adviser Sets Record Straight on Local Support for Bike Lanes
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If you’re on the Twitter, you may have noticed that Howard Wolfson, a senior adviser and communications strategist for Mayor Bloomberg with a long resume in Democratic Party politics, has been tweeting up a #bikenyc storm lately. Wolfson’s bike tweets tend to focus on the lengthy record of public support for bike lanes — all […]
Three Down…
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I wanted to post this last week, but got caught up with something or other about a bike lane. The timing worked out, though, because today we can mark an anniversary… Can you believe it’s been two years to the day since we posted this picture? Of the four State Senators who refused to put […]
What Backlash? Q Poll Finds 54 Percent of NYC Voters Support Bike Lanes
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After several months of almost uniformly bad press from NYC’s major media outlets, the expansion of the city’s bike network still enjoys sizable majority support among city voters, with 54 percent in favor and 39 percent opposed, according to a Quinnipiac poll released this morning. The poll is the first solid public opinion data on […]
Brooklyn CB 6 Committees Vote Unanimously for DOT’s Next Steps on PPW
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The transportation and public safety committees of Brooklyn Community Board 6 unanimously approved a motion last night supporting DOT’s proposals to, among other things, add raised concrete pedestrian islands and bike “rumble strips” to the redesigned Prospect Park West. The full resolution is quite lengthy and includes a few of the committee’s own recommendations, like […]
Crain’s: Finalists Chosen for NYC Bike-Share
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Crain’s reports that the city has narrowed down the proposals to two, maybe three, finalists to operate a bike-share system which could add about 10,000 public bikes at 600 stations to NYC’s transportation mix: Sources confirm two finalists: Alta Bicycle Share, based in Portland, Ore., and B-Cycle, owned by Wisconsin bicycle maker Trek, health insurer […]
PPW Plaintiffs Cherrypicked Data to Attack DOT’s Bike Lane Evaluation
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Opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane got some page views in the Park Slope Patch yesterday, repeating arguments from their lawsuit against the city [PDF] (arguments that have also been published, basically unaltered and unanalyzed, in the Daily News and the Post). Their core claim is that DOT should not have used three-year […]
Video: What It’s Like to Walk Across the Prospect Park West Bike Lane
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One of the arguments we’ve been hearing from opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane is that the redesign makes it difficult to see bike traffic as you cross from the west side of the street to the park side. So, how hard is it to get a clear view of the two-way bike […]
DOT Presents Scaled-Back Concept for 34th Street
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“Consensus” and “process” were the buzzwords last night when NYC DOT presented its new concept for improving transit on 34th Street [PDF]. Gone was the plan for New York’s first physically separated busway — scuttled by local property owners and residents seeking drive-up curbside access. In its place was a package very similar to Select […]
Who Supports the Prospect Park West Bike Lane?
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As a referendum on the Prospect Park West redesign, last night’s Community Board 6 hearing was another clear signal that the two-way, protected bike path enjoys broad support within the community. On the community board’s sign-in sheet, 86 people put their names down to testify in favor of the project while 11 signed up to […]
At CB 6 Hearing, Supporters of PPW Redesign Outnumber Detractors 8 to 1
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I’ll have a longer post later today, but for now, here is the numerical recap from last night’s public hearing on the Prospect Park West redesign. The overall headcount was somewhere around 400 people. Transportation Alternatives handed out pro-bike lane stickers to 330 people before they exhausted their supply. Among the 100+ people who signed […]
Don’t Let Fear of Public Speaking Keep You From Tonight’s PPW Hearing
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Okay, if you’re a little hesitant about speaking in front of a packed community board hearing tonight, don’t worry. You can still register your opinion about the Prospect Park West redesign — if you show up. We’re hearing that Park Slope Neighbors will be on hand with a sign-in sheet for supporters of the redesign, […]