His film tells the story of McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint,
Brooklyn - one of New York's most dangerous streets, expanded under
city planner Robert Moses in the 1950s into a highway-like,
four-lane route cutting straight through a residential
neighborhood. Over 70 years, an estimated 200 people died there.
The turning point came in 2021 with the death of elementary school
teacher Matthew Jensen, struck by a car on his own birthday - the
spark for a three-year community movement that Ben followed with
his camera. He shot almost the entire film alone, with gear that
fits on a bike. He told me: "I wanted to test whether it's really
possible to make a documentary without using a car at all."
https://player.vimeo.com/video/1115240983? Kurze Werbung in eigener
Sache: Vom 26. bis 29. September nehme ich wieder eine kleine
Gruppe mit auf eine Learn&Travel-Delegation, diesmal nach
Graubünden. Wir schauen uns dort live an, wie Verkehrswende in der
Praxis funktioniert - vom Fahrrad bis zur Bahn, von Entsiegelung
bis autonomem Fahren, von Co-Working auf dem Land bis zu
erfolgreichen, weil datenbasierten Infrastrukturprojekten und
Frauen als vernachlässigter Kunden*innengruppe in der Mobilität.
Wenn du davon etwas mitnehmen willst in deine Kommune, deine Stadt
oder an deine Hochschule: Bis zum 15. August gibt es 10 Prozent
Frühbucher*innenrabatt auf die Unterkunft im Story und die
Fahrkarten für Montag "for free". Alle Infos inklusive Prospekt zum
Download und Anmeldung: hier. We talked about the political
dysfunction behind the street redesign - Ben draws parallels to
Robert Caro's book "The Power Broker" about Moses and says: "
Corruption is almost a defining feature of politics in New York."
He described to me how opponents of the redesign worked with false
claims, for instance that narrower lanes would block emergency
vehicles, and we put that in historical context: the transformative
era of transportation planner Janette Sadik-Khan under Mayor
Bloomberg, followed by years of purely reactive "band-aid politics"
- up to today, where Ben sees new hope in New York's mayor-elect
Zohran Mamdani. Again and again we came back to the core of his
conviction: "Cars are anti-urban. They make public space unpleasant
and destroy social interaction - they isolate you instead of
bringing you together with others." And: only about 20 percent of
residents along McGuinness Boulevard even own a car - reserving the
street for them, he says, is "not a democratic solution." Despite
all the accounts of political dysfunction, I ended the conversation
feeling hopeful. Ben's central message, the one that stuck with me:
if you can actually make a difference on a small, local problem, do
exactly that "find something where you can actually make a real
difference." His film "Changing Lanes" is currently available via
Amazon and Canopy in the US, with European distribution in
preparation. If you like this episode: Spread it and charge me a
coffee
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