Friday’s Headlines Have Their Fingers Crossed
Will the Supreme Court stop the feds from even attempting to address climate change? Plus, the problem with AVs and the new "traffic bible," and more.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on November 5, 2021
- An upcoming Supreme Court case will decide whether the EPA even has the power to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. (Vox)
- The problem with Big Tech’s vision of a future filled with autonomous vehicles is that it takes car dependency as a given when ordinary public transit is safer, cheaper and more efficient. (Fast Company)
- The updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices inexplicably left out many ideas for making streets safer. (The Urbanist)
- A conservative think tank is advancing the argument that more gas and oil production is good, actually, because the alternative is to burn even dirtier coal. (Washington Post)
- Consolidation and competition from freight and buses, and later cars, killed off L.A.’s streetcar system, once the grandest in the country. (Los Angeles Times)
- The Memphis Area Transit Authority is testing a new streetcar on a trolley line that last ran in 2014. (WREG)
- Clayton County officials approved plans for a bus rapid transit line through the Atlanta suburb. (AJC)
- San Diego labor and environmental groups are gathering signatures to put a sales tax hike for transportation on the ballot in 2022. (Voice of San Diego)
- A proposal for a monorail linking Miami Beach with the mainland barely snuck through a citizens’ transportation panel. (Miami Today)
- Portland should not go along with plans for a 12-lane I-5 bridge over the Columbia River (City Observatory).
- A new bike- and bus-only lane in Madison has cleared up a confusing bottlenecks, although bikes and buses must share a lane in one direction while buses run in traffic in the other because the city wouldn’t remove parking. (Wisconsin State Journal)
- Kentucky christened a 265-mile bike trail, but unfortunately it appears to be little more than signage along two-lane country roads. (WLKY)
- If you ignore all of Qatar’s human rights abuses, as CNN Travel did, the new metro it’s building for the 2022 World Cup could be the future of transit.
Blake Aued has been doing Streetsblog's daily national news digest for years. He's also an Atlanta Braves fan, which enrages his editor in New York.
Read More:
Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.
More from Streetsblog USA
Study: Trump’s Transit Proposal Would Cost the Country So Many Jobs — And Not Just in Cities
... but an increase in funding would be a job-creating juggernaut.
May 13, 2026
Wednesday’s Headlines Are Bought and Paid For
The Union of Concerned Scientists explains how the highway lobby keeps so many of us in our cars.
May 13, 2026
Opinion: It’s Time to Rethink Our Congestion Obsession
Policymakers constantly suggest that we need to spend billions of dollars and bulldoze countless acres of land to fix traffic jams. But do we?
May 13, 2026
Speed Ills! Reckless Driving on the Rise in Car Ads, Study Shows
Car commercials featuring unsafe driving are rising — as are crash fatalities linked to speeding. Hmm.
May 12, 2026
Not For Granite: New Hampshire Man Isn’t Laughing At Anti-Cyclist Comments From State Elected Official
A voter sent this letter to state Rep. Thomas Walsh, but he speaks for all of us.
May 12, 2026