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
Arizona to Other States: Take Our Transit Funding… Please
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Streetsblog founder Aaron Naparstek passes along this tale of legislative dysfunction from sunny Phoenix, Arizona. The narrator is former Arizona state legislator Steve Farley, a former public artist and community activist who recently brought home a $63 million TIGER grant to fund a new streetcar in Tucson. It’s a good thing the feds provide funding […]
Hummer Going the Way of the Dodo
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The days are numbered for the military vehicle that carmakers turned into the bane of pedestrians, cyclists and planet Earth. GM has announced plans to wind down Hummer production after a deal to sell the brand to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart. According to the Times, the Chinese government wanted no part of Hummer because […]
Want to Foster Walking, Biking and Transit? You Need Good Parking Policy
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The high-water mark for American parking policy came in the early 1970s, when cities including New York, Boston, and Portland set limits on off-street parking in their downtowns. They were compelled to do so by lawsuits brought under the Clean Air Act, which used the lever of parking policy to curb traffic and reduce pollution […]
New York City’s Broadway Pedestrian Zone to Become Permanent
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Hopefully you don’t seethe too much about how many parsecs ahead of us New York City is in reclaiming space for people from cars, but we thought we’d share this momentous news from Streetsblog NY. Looks like Mayor Bloomberg has made a complete one-eighty from his position on traffic just a few years ago. The […]
Sponsors Sold on Health, Economic Benefits of Minneapolis Bike-Share
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Don’t count out Boston just yet, but it looks like Minneapolis may be the first American city out of the gate with a public bicycle system of 1,000 bikes or more. Last week, the non-profit Nice Ride Minnesota selected the Public Bike System Company (the same firm behind Montreal’s Bixi) to install its system, which […]
NY MTA Opens Data, General Transit Feed Specification Formalized
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In a big turnaround, the MTA now touts third-party transit applications on its website. As we’ve reported, the last bastion of closed transit data had been the New York Metropolitan region, served by the nation’s largest transit operator, the NYMTA, which is comprised of the Long Island Railroad, Metro North Railroad, and the NYC subways […]
A Message from Copenhagen: Climate Plan Must Include Walkable Urbanism
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The energy-saving benefits of transit aren’t limited to the transportation sector. Image: Jonathan Rose Companies via Richard Layman. At a panel discussion yesterday at the Copenhagen climate summit, American policymakers and transit experts delivered a clear message: Walkable urban development must be part of any effective plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to […]
Streetfilms: Congressman Earl Blumenauer Bikes NYC
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Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer is one of Capitol Hill’s strongest voices for walking, biking and transit. Soon after arriving in Congress in 1996, he started the Congressional Bike Caucus, now more than 160 members strong, and he’s the founding chairman of the House’s new "Livable Communities Task Force," which he announced two weeks ago here […]
Will “Crash-Proof” Cars Make Drivers More Dangerous?
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Via TreeHugger, Copenhagenize reports that Volvo is in the final stages of testing technology to improve safety for people outside its products — a "pedestrian detection" system available in S60 models next year: It is meant to spot all pedestrians in front of the car as well as off to the sides in a 60 […]
Google Bike Routes — Almost Here?
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New Yorkers can use Ride the City to plan bike trips. Cyclists in most other American cities don’t have the option. The folks at Google Maps "Bike There" — the blog dedicated to getting the world’s foremost information cruncher to include bike directions in its trip planning tools — noticed an encouraging development yesterday. On […]
Can State DOTs Be Trained to Kick the Sprawl Habit?
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I had the chance to listen in yesterday to top staffers from USDOT explain their collaboration with HUD and the EPA — the "Partnership for Livable Communities" that was first unveiled in March and touted again by President Obama in July. Three officials, including one of Ray LaHood’s top deputies, Beth Osborne, outlined their plans […]
Always Wear a Bullet-Proof Helmet
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The shooter, Charles Diez. Here’s some incredible out-of-town road rage, via TreeHugger. A motorist in Asheville, North Carolina was so incensed by the sight of a father biking with his 3-year-old kid mounted on a rear seat, that he pulled over and fired a gun at the cycling dad’s head: Police said the driver, Charles […]