I’ve talked with New York documentary filmmaker Ben Wolf – an episode across two continents, but about the same subject: the dominance of the car and the ways out of it. Ben has lived in New York for about 30 years and worked for other filmmakers for a long time before directing his first film himself, „Changing Lanes„.

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.

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.“

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.

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