chris@MIMSY.UMD.EDU (Chris Torek) (01/14/89)
From: mcvax!ukc!cs.tcd.ie!tcdmath!gwills@uunet.uu.net (Graham Wills) They would have been much more quaint if they had remarked " Oh, a new type of transport which will cause fundamental changes in the way we live " Graham Wills TCD, Ireland There is an old joke about the difference between an Englishman and an American (USAn): The Englishman thinks 100 miles is a long distance; the American thinks 100 years is a long time. I suspect the joke applies to the Irish as well. The automobile *did* cause `fundamental' changes in the way the average American lives: it enabled the creation of suburbs. Many of those who work in the D.C. area live more than 60 miles away from their place of employment. The average suburbanite drives more than fifteen thousand miles each year%---more than 40 miles each day. This pace is rather a bit heavy for horse-and-buggy. Chris ----- % This figure was determined by the laborious process of picking a nice-sounding number out of thin air. :-)
gwills%maths.tcd.ie@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (01/16/89)
Yes, as soon as I sent that one in I thought about it a bit more... I actually don't think the *distance* matters very much - it doesn' create a *fundamental* change, it merely allows people to travel further; it allows the suburbs to be further out (there were suburbs in horse 'n' carriage days). The key word in your letter was "average". It's the fact that the average person today has a mode of transport that has caused the revolution. Whereas previously only a small percentage could travel more than 3-5 miles without relying on v eryinfrequent public transport, now most people can. This has lead to the cur rent revolutionised transport and cultural situation. BTW, I liked the 100 mile / 100 year quote. I (an Englishman) certainly *DO* think 100 miles a long way (Why... Dublin and Belfast are that far apart and thats a *long* way... :-) ), but when I think about some government decision, I do wonder what its long term effects will be. - Graham.