Friday’s Headlines Are Cruisin’ in My ’64
Breaking news: Driving is fun, but expensive and dangerous.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on August 28, 2026
- People get a visceral thrill out of driving, according to a study by a company that makes motor oil. (Jalopnik)
- The cost of a new car keeps rising, and more and more motorists are putting themselves into dangerous amounts of debt to own one. Unsurprisingly, this phenomenon is worst in the sprawling Sun Belt exurbs, where drivers in eight states between Georgia and New Mexico are most likely to be overspending on cars, going into debt equivalent to at least half their income. (Wallet Hub)
- Climate change is ruining a lot of the natural sites along a cross-country road trip (Grist), which, ironically, is partly because people are taking 9,000-mile road trips by car.
- Volvo has developed technology allowing cars to warn drivers in other cars about hazards ahead. (The Verge)
- The Nashville Scene took a deep dive into the city’s efforts to dig itself out of a deadly hole in regards to street safety.
- For a limited time only, Oregon residents can get a rebate on an electric vehicle. (Oregonian)
- Pittsburgh’s guerrilla crosswalks are a cry for help. (City Paper)
- In lieu of actual pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, Las Vegas is using AI to detect when people want to cross the street, and it’s working about as well as AI usually does. (Jalopnik)
- St. Louis is considering demolishing a vacant parking garage as part of an urban revitalization effort. (STL NPR)
- In Phoenix, 80 percent of crashes between cars and light rail trains are the drivers’ fault. (Fox 10)
- In Seattle, Sound Transit is moving forward with a fare gate pilot program at 14 light rail stations. (KING)
- Converting the Jacksonville Skyway to buses would cost almost $300 million. (Times-Union; paywall)
- Richmond is dramatically broadening its approach to Vision Zero. (Axios)
- The European Union estimates that transportation noise contributes to 12,000 premature deaths per year. (Brussels Times)
- Bogota is proof that traffic calming works on arterial roads. (The City Fix)
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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