Can You Tell Me How to Get to Friday’s Headlines?
"Sesame Street," which taught generations of children about life in the big city, might not be long for this world.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on August 8, 2025
- Now-endangered “Sesame Street” has brought urban life into children’s living rooms all over the country for more than 50 years, from Jane Jacobs’ ideas to the 15-minute city to gentrification. (New York Times)
- Uber still has a sexual assault problem. (NYT)
- Motorcycles pollute more than you’d think. Unfortunately, the current crop of electric choppers just isn’t very useful, according to Road & Track.
- Lyft is testing autonomous buses as a way to compete with Uber, Waymo and Tesla’s robotaxis. (Tennessean)
- Las Vegas is considering light rail along Charleston Boulevard, one of its busiest roads. (KTNV)
- The mayor of Irving, Texas wants to contribute less to Dallas Area Rapid Transit, but his city already gets more from DART than it puts it. (KERA)
- San Antonio is using old EV batteries that still have life to store solar energy for the power grid. (Texas Tribune)
- Many Philadelphia K-12 and college students and teachers rely on SEPTA to get to school, and they’re bracing for transit cuts that are coming unless the state legislature gets its act together (NBC 10). Meanwhile, House Democrats advanced another transit funding bill to the Republican-controlled Senate (WITF)
- Minnesota’s little-used Northstar commuter rail line will stop running in early January, when the Vikings’ football season ends. (Star Tribune)
- Denver is the latest city to abolish minimum parking requirements for new developments. (Denverite)
- Portland is looking for a new vendor to provide free adaptive bike rentals. (BikePortland). The city also approved a vendor to replace speed cameras, several of which have vanished recently (KGW).
- Spokane’s mayor signed an updated complete streets law. (KREM)
- Southwest Atlanta residents are complaining about the slow pace of a complete streets project on Cascade Road. (Georgia Public Broadcasting)
- Singapore is testing battery-swapping stations that let electric big rigs get back on the road in five minutes. (Transport Topics)
- The European Union is introducing new brake-pad regulations that reduce dust pollution by 27 percent. (BBC)
- New Zealand announced that it will pay for roads by charging vehicles by weight and distance traveled, rather than taxing gas. (Interest)
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.
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