34. Getting from here to there

Topic 34: 10 November 2017: Getting from here to there

1. What is your favourite form of travel (walking, cycling, car, bus, train, plane etc.)? Why?

2. Is Adelaide's public transport good enough? How would you change it?

3. For many people, cars are not just transport. They spend a lot of money on them. However, my car cost only $2100 and I'm satisfied (I don't care what other people think). How much would you spend on a car? Why?

4. Do you prefer to live in a nice suburb and house, even if you have to commute a long way? Or would you prefer to live near the city centre, even in a small apartment? Why?

5. Two generations ago in America, big car companies used politics to destroy public transport systems in American cities. Why do you think they did that? Was it intelligent to force everyone to drive cars?

6. Within a few years, electric cars will replace our present cars. Some (maybe most) of the electric cars will be automatic, without drivers. How will this change our cities?

7. At this moment, roughly 500,000 people around the world are in the air flying somewhere. When I was a child, very few people flew. They caught ships and trains. How have planes changed our friendships and businesses?

8. 1300 people lost their lives on the roads in Australia last year, 2016 (an economic loss of $27 billion). However while I was working in China in 2000, each day 600 people died on Chinese roads and 42,000 were injured (and China is not the worst!). If a country was at war and had casualties like Chinese road deaths, that country would probably surrender! But with car accidents nobody really cares. Why do people have such different attitudes about deaths on the road and deaths in a war?

9. Each hour walking or running adds 7 hours to your life. I do 100km per week on my feet, 60km of those running. What is your weekly score? Do you have a plan to run and walk more? Why/why not?

10. Tell your partner a story about one journey you made which was very memorable.