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
Transpo Funding Intrigue in Washington State
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Here’s a look at what’s happening around the Streetsblog Network today… Washington Governor Jay Inslee may go ahead and swallow the “poison pill” that Republican legislators insisted on including in a state transportation package, reports Frank Chachiere at Seattle Transit Blog. That would mean Inslee will go ahead with a low-carbon fuel standard for the state, which will […]
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 make good […]
Killing a Transit Project Isn’t Going to Fix Your City’s Parking Crunch
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Yesterday we 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 storing their cars […]
Like Great Transit, a Compact City Gives People Freedom
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The Congress for New Urbanism has posted a video of Jarrett Walker (of Human Transit fame) delivering a new presentation, “Learning the Language of Transit.” There’s a passage where Walker frames transit as not simply a mode of transportation, but a means to access your city and, ultimately, the freedom and opportunity to do the things […]
America’s Biggest Bike-Share Operator Now Makes Its Own Bikes
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Motivate, the company that runs bike-share systems in several large American cities, is now manufacturing its own bikes. When the current Motivate management team took over last fall, they inherited two big problems. Most of their systems ran on flawed software that crippled reliability and frustrated riders, and the manufacturer of their bikes had gone bankrupt. Now both issues […]
Get Ready for Streetsblog Denver
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I’m pleased to welcome the newest member of the Streetsblog collective: Starting today, you can get news and commentary about safe streets, effective transit, and walkable development in the Mile High City by pointing your browser to Streetsblog Denver. Streetsblog Denver arrives at a pivotal moment. The city is growing at an incredibly rapid pace, and it desperately needs […]
Streetsblog Retains BlankSlate to Strengthen Our Bottom Line
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Earlier this year, I wrote about the imperative for Streetsblog to generate more revenue from our website. With so many unsold impressions, ads were a clear opportunity to put Streetsblog’s sizable reach to use strengthening our bottom line. Today I’m pleased to announce that we’ve retained BlankSlate to help us sell ads and make good on that […]
Welcome Back, Streetsblog Chicago!
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Congratulations to John Greenfield, Steven Vance, and the readers and supporters who enabled Streetsblog Chicago to pull off a rousing comeback and resume regular publication yesterday. At the beginning of the year, budget constraints compelled OpenPlans to sever our relationship with the Chicago team after two years of publication. Right off the bat, John told me […]
A New Type of Streetsblog in St. Louis, Ohio, Texas, and the Southeast? Yep.
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A little more than six years ago, we launched the Streetsblog Network as a way for people across the country writing about livable streets, sustainable transportation, and smart growth to band together and share ideas. There are many wonderful things about the Streetsblog Network, but I would put this is at the top of my […]
Seattle Car-Share Is Growing, But Is It Cutting Traffic?
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After launching a pilot program three years ago enabling the company car2go to use on-street parking spots for its car-share fleet, Seattle is pursuing an expansion that would allow new companies to enter the market and dramatically increase the availability of point-to-point car-share vehicles. Scott Bonjukian at The Urbanist has the details about the expansion […]
What People Think of a Citywide 25 MPH Speed Limit in Decatur
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Last year, New York City enacted a citywide 25 mph speed limit, a central plank in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero street safety platform. Are other American cities going to follow suit? Outside Atlanta, Decatur, Georgia, has been mulling a reduction of its default speed limit for a few years. The results of a […]
Jay Walder on What’s Next for America’s Biggest Bike-Share Company
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Last fall, former MTA chief Jay Walder took over as CEO of Alta Bicycle Share, part of a restructuring that injected new resources and expertise into a company that had struggled to keep up with the demands of running bike-share systems in half a dozen major American cities. This morning, the company came out with […]