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
New Name for Alta Bicycle Share: “Motivate”
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After new management took over in 2014, injecting capital and expertise that’s expected to turn around a sputtering operation, the company formerly known as Alta Bicycle Share has adopted a new name: Motivate. (A verb! Very active transportation-y.) Motivate operates bike-share systems in New York, DC, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle, making it the […]
Jane Jacobs’ 1958 Warning About the Loss of Street Life Still Resonates
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The mistakes of the urban renewal era are supposed to be behind us. Super-blocks, blank walls, and the publicly subsidized demolition of varied buildings to make way for monolithic districts are relics of a bygone era. Right? Branden Klayko, who writes about Louisville at Broken Sidewalk, doesn’t think so. While development practices have changed in […]
Changes at Streetsblog in 2015
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When Streetsblog launched in 2006, the site made an impact almost immediately. The daily scrutiny of NYC transportation agencies and elected officials created new opportunities for policy reform, leading to real change in the design and operation of our streets. It wasn’t long before advocates from out of town contacted Streetsblog about bringing this model […]
Wishing for “Truly Open Streets” in 2015
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It’s a new year, and around the Streetsblog Network people are posting their 2014 retrospectives and resolutions for the year ahead. Kristen Jeffers at The Black Urbanist shares these thoughts to kick off 2015: Remember this picture of me? I was playing on a B-cycle demonstration bike on the street that I helped paint, to […]
Keep Streetsblog Going Strong – Donate and Enter to Win a New PUBLIC Bike
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If you look at the state of American streets, the scale of our transportation dysfunction is epic. Nothing conveys the failure of the car-based system better than this: More than 30,000 people lose their lives in traffic annually — which means the U.S. could prevent about 20,000 premature deaths each year if we catch up […]
How Does the Threat of Police Violence Affect How You Use the Street?
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When the news came out yesterday that a Staten Island grand jury had failed to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner with an illegal chokehold, like many people I found the outcome difficult to comprehend. With clear video evidence showing that Pantaleo broke NYPD protocol and a coroner’s report certifying that Garner’s death […]
The Link Between Northeast Ohio’s Flooding and Its Sprawl
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After a string of major flooding events, residents of Northeast Ohio are looking for someone to blame, reports Tim Kovach. Are local governments at fault for the property damage from these floods? Or should residents, as a great poet once said, blame it on the rain? Neither question really gets to the heart of the […]
Miami Highway Builders Try to Sell a New Sprawl Project to the Public
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The Miami Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) wants to build a highway extension in the southwest fringes of the city, near the edge of the Everglades, and to do that it needs to ingratiate itself with the public. At an open house to kick off the public-facing phase of the planning process, agency staff were well-prepared […]
Where Cyclists Have the Power to Ride Straight Past Turning Motorists
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Hey, so it turns out the all-powerful @BicycleLobby didn’t actually scale the Brooklyn Bridge and plant white American flags at the top. That was two all-powerful German artists. But courtesy of Clarence Eckerson Jr., here’s some footage of raw bicyclist power in Copenhagen, where turning drivers defer to people on bikes at intersections. I guess […]
Midwest Rail Advocates Take the Fight to Scott Walker
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In November, voters in 36 states will head to the polls to choose governors. Among the state leaders up for reelection is Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, who faces a strong challenge from Democrat and former Trek Bicycle executive Mary Burke. Walker is one of three Republican governors who rejected high-speed rail funds from the Obama administration in 2010 […]
NYC’s Citi Bike Deal Is Great News for Bay Area Bike Share, Too
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It looks like New York City is days away from announcing a deal in which REQX Ventures, an affiliate of the Related Companies and its Equinox unit, will buy out Alta Bicycle Share, the company that operates Citi Bike and Bay Area Bike Share. The implications are big — not just for bike-share in New […]
Time Is Running Out to Become a Streetsblog Superhero — Give Today
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This is it! The final days and the final giveaway of our spring pledge drive. So far, 221 superheroes have donated to Streetsblog and Streetfilms. To reach our goal, we need 179 more readers to step up and give by Sunday at midnight. If you’ve been been holding out until the end of the pledge […]