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
Northeast Ohio to State DOT: Road Expansions Getting Out of Hand
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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 […]
Vote for the Best Urban Street Transformation in U.S. in 2015
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It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2015, which means we’re about to hand out Streetsies to recognize achievements for walking, biking, and transit in American cities this year. Earlier this month we asked readers for nominations for the Best Urban Street Transformation of the year, and here are the standouts from your submissions. It’s […]
If Congress Cared About Climate, Its Transport Bill Would Look Much Different
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With a few exceptions, the five-year transportation bill heading to President Obama’s desk continues what has been the core function of federal transportation policy for more than 60 years — sending a ton of money to the states to spend on highways. Preventing a big step backward was about as much as you could hope […]
Roger Rudick Is the New Editor of Streetsblog SF
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Thanks for your patience, Bay Area readers. The blog posts will soon be flowing like you’ve come to expect, because after a competitive search, we’re pleased to announce that Roger Rudick is the new editor of Streetsblog San Francisco. Roger is an experienced transportation journalist and activist who’s impressed us with his deep understanding of […]
The Stubborn Persistence of Car Dependence
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With driving on the upswing again as gas prices remain surprisingly low, Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic is taking a long hard look at what it will take to substantially change America’s travel habits. He notes that except for a handful of cities with good transit, driving continues to account for most of the […]
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 […]
We’re Hiring! Lead Streetsblog’s Coverage of the SF Bay Area
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After four terrific years running Streetsblog San Francisco, Aaron Bialick is moving on. Before I get to the job opening, I’d like to pay my respects to his body of work. The quintessential post of the Aaron Bialick era, to my mind, was this item from early 2014. With Ed Lee laying the groundwork for […]
NY Mayor Has Yet to Say Traffic Is More Dangerous Than Painted Breasts
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Mayor de Blasio had a chance today to quell the uproar over his suggestion that the city may rip out the Times Square pedestrian plazas. Instead he equivocated and didn’t take the idea off the table: Here’s what Bill de Blasio told NY1 today about the Times Square pedestrian plazas pic.twitter.com/kKQpF4OJlC — Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) […]
An Experiment in Driver-Cyclist Interaction, Powered By Christmas Lights
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When you’re on a bike getting passed by motorists going 20 or 30 mph faster than you, it can feel like one act of deliberate aggression after another. And in many cases there is real, seething hostility and complete disregard for other people’s safety at work. But a lot of the time, people drive fast […]
How Parking Permits Can Improve the Politics of Walkable Development
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Residential parking permits are often referred to as “hunting licenses” because while they grant permit holders the privilege of parking on the street, there’s usually no limit to how many permits can be issued. If there are more permits in a neighborhood than available on-street parking spaces, there’s still going to be a parking crunch […]
When Transit Goes Down at the Polls, Here’s Some Advice on How to Regroup
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Last week, voters in the Vancouver region rejected a half-cent sales tax to pay for a package of transit infrastructure and service expansions necessary to handle growing demand. Even in the city of Vancouver, the measure fell shy of a majority. Polling revealed that most “No” voters didn’t trust the regional transit agency, TransLink, to […]
Killing a Transit Project Isn’t Going to Fix Your City’s Parking Crunch
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Yesterday Streetsblog USA ran a post from Michael Andersen about how Newark fixed the glut of parked cars on Mount Prospect Avenue, the first street in New Jersey to get a protected bike lane: Instead of letting people park in the bikeway, the city started charging for parking. With a price on parking, people stopped […]