Ben Fried

Ben Fried is the editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. He joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter in 2008. Today he oversees Streetsblog's family of sites covering stories of significance to the national movement for better walking, biking, and transit.

Ben graduated from Oberlin College with a concentration in architecture, and he holds a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia University.

He lives with his wife in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, and he loves the Mets.

Recent Posts

Photo: NYC Mayor's Office
STREETSBLOG NYC

Yesterday’s Times Square Toll Was Terrible — But So Is a Typical Day of Traffic Violence

By Brad Aaron and Ben Fried |
Given the high-profile location, the number of victims, and recent instances of people using vehicles to kill for ideology, it's understandable that yesterday's crash drew so much attention. But it's important to recognize that as terrible as the Times Square carnage was for a single incident, the same human toll occurs on a daily basis on NYC streets -- it's just dispersed across the city.
Shared bikes in Shanghai. Photo: Mark Gorton
STREETSBLOG NYC

Bike-Share as a Speculative Venture

By Ben Fried |
New York, you may have heard, is about to get invaded by a swarm of bike-share companies. Their product is often described as “dockless” bike-share: They rely on “smart locks,” not fixed stations, to secure the bicycles. But dockless systems have been operating in cities including Hoboken and Portland for some time now — it’s not […]

Welcome to the New and Improved Streetsblog

By Ben Fried |
For the first time in nearly nine years, we’re debuting a sitewide redesign of Streetsblog. The last time we overhauled the site, few people were reading news on their phones, Twitter was just finding a mass audience, and no one thought of Facebook as the world’s most important media platform. Streetsblog was a single non-profit with reporters […]
Imagine all the Trump signs marking projects that get tax breaks from the infrastructure plan Steve Bannon is pushing for. Schumer photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls/Wikimedia Commons; Bannon photo: Don Irvine/Wikimedia Commons
STREETSBLOG USA

Steve Bannon Would Love to Team Up With Chuck Schumer on Infrastructure

By Angie Schmitt and Ben Fried |
We mentioned it briefly last week, but Trump advisor Steve Bannon’s comments to the Hollywood Reporter about infrastructure are worth a closer look. It helps explain why Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are making a grave mistake when they line up to help Trump implement this plan. Bannon is the propagandist who entered the Trump campaign team after […]
pelosi_trump_schumer
STREETSBLOG USA

Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi Are Falling for Infrastructure Propaganda

By Ben Fried and Angie Schmitt |
We’re going to see a lot of stories about Donald Trump and infrastructure in the next few months, and this reporting will be heavily influenced by a message that has been honed and perfected by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It will be important to see through these arguments and view the Trump infrastructure plan with clear eyes. Already, leading Congressional Democrats […]

Do Not Collaborate With Hatred

By Ben Fried |
Last week, on the day after the election, I watched as Chuck Schumer and Andrew Cuomo, Democrats who represent my state, said they could find common ground with Donald Trump, with Cuomo specifically mentioning “infrastructure” as a potential area of collaboration. We responded with a post explaining why this was a strategic mistake in terms of transportation policy. Today […]

What Changed Yesterday, and What Didn’t

By Ben Fried |
America just elected Donald Trump, who got a foothold in national politics by fanning a conspiracy about Barack Obama’s country of origin, who ran a campaign premised on a naked appeal to racist anger and resentment, who shredded every norm of conduct on his way to the presidency. He’s going to occupy the White House […]
STREETSBLOG CALIFORNIA

Rescuing New Ideas From the Purgatory of Old Bureaucracy

By Ben Fried |
Your city may have a complete streets policy. Your mayor may say all the right things about making streets work for walking, biking, and transit. But if the inner workings of government — city budgets, agency protocols — aren’t set up to enable big street design breakthroughs, all you’ll get are scattershot improvements. Writing for Network blog Broken Sidewalk, Chris […]
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