Meet Ben Wellington, The Pratt Professor Who Just Exposed A Major NYPD Ticketing Glitch

“I see myself as telling stories hidden within data,” explained Ben Wellington, the Pratt professor behind the open government blog I Quant NY.

Wellington’s most recent study has made headlines because he discovered that the NYPD has been collecting millions from ticketing legally parked cars.

“In this case I had just gotten a parking ticket that I felt was unjust so it just spurred me to say to myself ‘Hey, I bet I could quantify this. it can’t be just me that’s getting this.’ and so with open data, you can take the next step,” said Wellington.

Wellington tried something new with his latest study by tipping off the NYPD about three weeks before he published his findings to the public. He says didn’t want the NYPD to be under press interest and have to get out answers very quickly.

Wellington was effusive in his praise of the NYPD’s response to the study.

“I found it really promising to see an agency react to some public findings in a way that takes responsibility for something gone wrong and seek to improve it,” said Wellington. He added that “their reaction was really unusual and uplifting to many in the open government movement.”

Wellington is a native of Danbury, Connecticut. He attended college at Bucknell and then went straight to graduate school at NYU. Along the way, he honed his pattern recognition skills in the improv group “Dangerbox.”

Wellington doesn’t consider himself a data journalist. His research has evolved serendipitously as a product of his work and home life.

I Quant NY began with a statistics class where he decided to use real city data instead of hypotheticals. It’s since been influenced heavily by his wife, an urban planner and (almost a) lawyer, who is his editor. He calls her his inspiration. She’s also the reason that he came to Brooklyn.

“At first, it was just me wanting to learn more about the city, to live and express how useful that could be for urban planning and other fields but as I did that more, it became clear there were these giant gaping holes,” said Wellington.

“It was my wife who convinced me to jump across the river. We moved to Brooklyn maybe four or five years ago. I like the neighborhood aspect much better,” said Wellington, who now resides in Carroll Gardens.

When I asked Wellington what he liked best about Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, he said it was hard to parse out any one thing, but the way it came together.

“You just get to know people a lot, it’s a lot more local. It has more of a neighborhood feel,” explained the erstwhile professor who cited Fort Greene Park and Pratt’s campus among his favorite places.

He plans to be in Brooklyn for a while, not least because he views New York as a leader in the open data movement. He’s working on a book, but he’s unsure of what precisely is next in his future but we’re sure it will be exciting.

“Getting people to see a glimpse of what a future of open data and open government is what excites me most,” detailed the brilliant citizen-activist.