The LA Time asked an expert for specific recommendations on fixing nightmarish parking lots

Yes, various lots around the city featuring Trader Joe's and In-N-Out. The article features detailed animated clips highlighting and solving problems.

A specific part of Houston is plagued by stopped trains blocking intersections

Houston Landing:

It’s a running joke: If you live in the East End, you have a “stopped train” story. I’ve heard them all. Kids throwing bikes under train cars to reach McReynolds Middle School – just a few yards from the track – in time for class. 

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Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel Peña says that as recently as two months ago, his department experienced, on average, “96 instances a month where our crews were either delayed or they had to reroute because of blocked crossings.” The obstructions added up to 10 minutes to response times. 

The problem is so persistent for Houston Fire Station 18 that crews installed a camera allowing them to check whether streets are blocked by a stopped train as they load up to respond to a call. But even that’s not perfect. Trains that appear to be in motion at the time a call comes in can grind to a halt by the time a fire engine reaches the intersection. 

"A stinking trainload of human waste from New York City is stranded in a tiny Alabama town, spreading a stench like a giant backed-up toilet"

TS:

the sludge-hauling train cars have sat idle near the little league ball fields for more than two months

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The poop train's cargo is bound for the Big Sky landfill, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Parrish. The landfill has been accepting the New York sewage sludge since early 2017. Previously, it was transferred from trains to trucks in nearby West Jefferson, but officials there obtained an injunction to keep the sludge out of their town.

Related:

It just may be the most expensive bridge in the country.

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For commuters like Marcel Vantuyn, the tolls add up quickly, even with E-ZPass discounts. He pays $88.85 every week in combined tolls for the Verrazano and Goethals bridges just to shuttle back and forth between his home in Brooklyn and his job in Elizabeth, N.J.

"Dutch ‘Singing Road’ Silenced After Villagers Complain: ‘I’m Going Nuts’"

NYT:

Instead of putting “rumble strips” on a road in a small Dutch village to warn drivers who veered onto the shoulder, officials installed musical strips.

Workers painted the stretch of road near the village, Jelsum, last Friday to “play” music from the regional anthem when tires rumbled along the raised strips. But soon, the biggest rumbling was coming from the village as residents begged the authorities to make it stop.

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Signs told drivers, “You are approaching a singing road.” When drivers hit 60 kilometers per hour, about 38 m.p.h., the regional anthem rang loud and clear. And if drivers wandered onto the shoulder at a lower speed?

“If you go too slow, it’s the same thing like if you play a normal record: brr-brr-brr,” Ms. Poepjes said, imitating a slowed-down record.

And if a driver drove on the shoulder backward?