Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 72 of the Listening Time Podcast.
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All right.
In today's episode, we're going to talk about transportation.
This is an important topic because all of us need to use some mode of transportation to move from one place to another.
And there are different ways that we can go to different places.
There are different types of transportation.
So I'd like to talk about some of those today.
And remember that you have the transcript available for this episode.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so let's talk about transportation.
In particular, I want to talk about the different modes of transportation in different parts of the world that I have experience with.
So I want to talk a little bit about transportation in the US, about transportation in Mexico and transportation in Europe.
Obviously, I have more experience with transportation in the US and in Mexico, but I've been to Europe a couple of times.
And so I've had the opportunity to also go around throughout these countries as well and use different modes of transportation, so I can talk a little bit about that as well.
So first, let me talk about the US.
You might already know this, but in the US, cars are king.
In English, when we say that something is king, we're saying that it is the number one thing in this field.
So when we talk about transportation in the US, We have to start by talking about cars, because cars are definitely the most important and the most popular way that people get from point A to point B.
This is another expression that we use a lot in English.
We say get from point A to point B. We just mean that you're moving from one place to another.
So the most common way for people to get from point A to point B in the US is by driving.
So it's very common for people to have cars in the US.
For example, when I was younger, when I was living with my parents, but I was already driving.
I was 16, 17 and my sister was also living with us for a time period.
There were four of us in my house.
There were four of us living there, but we had five cars at our house.
For a lot of you, that might sound crazy.
That might sound like we were super rich, but absolutely not.
This is something that you can see with families in the US.
The mother has a car, the father has a car, both kids have a car.
In our case, we had an extra car because it was a really old car that we just never sold.
And it wasn't very good, but we still had it with us.
And so that's why we had five cars instead of four.
But remember that in the US, you can buy used cars for pretty cheap.
It's not like in other parts of the world where cars are always pretty expensive.
In the US, when you just want to buy a cheap Ford, functioning car, it doesn't cost that much money.
You can actually get a car for just a few thousand bucks if you want.
In English, the word buck just refers to dollar.
So if I say ten bucks, I'm saying ten dollars.
So you can buy a used car for a few thousand bucks, maybe even two thousand bucks, and get a working car that will do its job.
Of course, these will be old cars and not very nice, not very beautiful.
But they're cheap and they work if you buy the right one, of course.
And so this is a great way for people to get their first car when they get their license and start driving pretty easily.
So as you can see, cars are pretty accessible in the US compared to in other countries.
And the infrastructure in the US is made for cars.
So the way that our cities are designed is for people that want to drive from point A to point B, So we have cities that are intersected by highways.
So we have highways, highways that go through our cities, and so it's very easy to go from one part of the city, from one end of the city, to the opposite end of the city.
Of course, there's traffic during certain times of day, But in general it's very simple to just go straight through a city using a highway, and you can get to the other side very easily driving.
This is different in other countries, because in other countries, cities don't have highways that go directly through them.
So it's much harder to drive from one side of the city to the other side.
But in the U.S., it's very simple generally.
So you can see that everything in the U.S. is designed for cars.
We have more parking spaces than in other countries.
So it's easy to find parking when you go to different stores, different businesses.
They usually have parking lots and they're usually free.
So it's much easier than in other countries.
However, since in the US cars are king, this also means that there's little public transportation.
Of course, we have public transportation.
We have buses and we even have subway systems in some cities.
But in general, our public transportation is not very robust.
In English, the word robust refers to something that is complete, thorough.
It has a lot to it.
We don't have a robust public transportation system.
In most cities in the US We have some things like trolleys, which are like small trains.
We have this in San Diego, in my city, and I've taken it a few times before.
And like I said, we have some subway systems in major cities like in New York.
But in general most people in the US don't rely on these types of things to get to work or to go different places.
People drive.
It's pretty simple.
And of course, in the US, there are bikes and there are bike lanes.
Bike lanes are the lanes in the street that are specifically designated for bikes.
So we have a lot of bike lanes, so it's possible to do this.
But our cities are pretty spread out.
This means that places are far from each other, so it's not easy to bike to all the places that you want to go, and so that's not an option for most people.
But you can go and bike to places that are close by no problem, and in most cities you can't really walk to most of the places that you need to go to.
Like I said, our cities are pretty spread out and so walking isn't the number one way that you're going to get to different places.
But, of course, if you're in the downtown area or places like that, Usually it's pretty good for walking.
You can go to the places nearby, no problem.
But in general, like I said, people drive.
All right, let's talk about transportation in Mexico.
In Mexico, people also use cars a lot.
Cars are a little less accessible than in the US because they might be a little more expensive relative to people's salaries in Mexico.
So cars aren't quite as accessible as in the US, but cars are still king in Mexico, I would say.
People drive.
If people have cars, they definitely drive.
And one big reason for that is because the public transportation system in Mexico isn't very good.
It's not very efficient.
There's one city in Mexico, which is Mexico City, that has a more robust public transportation system.
But most other cities don't have a really good system.
So it's kind of hard to just rely on public transportation systems. to get to where you need to go.
And in this case, when I talk about public transportation, I'm talking about the subway system, because in Mexico City there is a big subway system, whereas in other cities we don't have that.
However, there are a lot of buses in Mexico.
So in my city, there are many, many buses.
And so there are buses for everyone, really.
But as I mentioned, the public transportation system isn't efficient.
So, even though there are a lot of buses, it still takes a long time to get to different places in the city, even though we have a lot of buses.
So it's very common for people to have to take two buses, or three buses, to go to work in the morning and to come back in the evening.
And it might take them an hour and a half or even two hours sometimes, to actually get to their destination.
So that's a long time.
Even though we have a lot of buses, even though you can definitely get from point A to point B using these buses, it's not going to be efficient a lot of the time.
You're going to spend a lot of time on this bus just waiting to arrive.
So it's not very fun.
So if people have cars in Mexico, in general, they use them.
They drive these cars.
The bad thing about driving in Mexico is that the cities are not designed to handle so much traffic and so many cars.
And we don't have highways that go through the cities like in the US, And so it's much harder to get from one side of the city to the other side.
And there's always a ton of traffic during rush hour.
In English, rush hour refers to the time of day when people are going to work or coming home from work.
So there are many cars on the road.
During rush hour, traffic is absolutely terrible in big cities in Mexico.
It's maybe some of the worst traffic in the world.
I've talked to people that live in Mexico City and usually they think that Mexico City has the worst traffic they've ever seen.
Worse than any other city, at least in North or South America.
So you can imagine that during rush hour you don't want to be in your car driving home or driving to work, because it's pretty bad.
And in Mexico it's not that easy to get around using a bike, because it's not quite as safe as in the US, or maybe in Europe, because there aren't as many bike lanes and so drivers can get closer to you and you might not really have a lot of space to ride in the street.
And you don't feel quite as safe because people here aren't used to seeing bikers everywhere in the streets.
And so they're not constantly looking left and right to see if there are any bikers around them.
They don't have that custom because it's not that normal here.
They're not used to it.
And so if you try to ride your bike in busy areas, you'll definitely have to be very cautious.
But there are some areas, like in my neighborhood, that have bike lanes and that are more suitable for bikers.
So in my neighborhood you can definitely ride your bike and get from point A to point B and it's very convenient in this neighborhood and you can rent bikes very easily.
So that's good.
And maybe that will expand to other parts of the city in the future.
But in Mexico.
I would have to say that the best way to get around, if you can, is through ride sharing.
So using apps that allow you to order a ride and someone drives you to another part of the city.
These are great in many cities in Mexico. because there are many drivers with these apps.
There are tons of people that use them and the prices aren't that high.
They're actually not too bad compared to other countries.
And so if you have the money to use these types of apps, they can be very useful.
Because you can avoid the buses and you don't have to worry about finding parking, because parking is not easy in Mexico.
And so you can get to your destination in the fastest way, without having to worry about parking or things like that.
And it's usually very comfortable.
So that's my number one way of going to different places and getting around the city in Mexico.
Lastly, let me talk about Europe.
So I've never lived in Europe, but I've been there twice and I've used the their public transportation system and it's pretty cool.
In a lot of different cities, like in paris, for example, it's so easy to just get around the city, to go wherever you want using the different subway lines.
In english, when we use the word line when talking about subways, we're talking about different routes.
So you have a lot of different lines that intersect and you can get off one line and get on another line at certain subway stations.
And these help you navigate to different parts of the city.
So in Paris, for example, there are many subway lines and it's very easy to go from any area of the city to another area.
Of course, you might need to walk a little bit.
Your subway line might not take you exactly to the point where you want to be.
But if you just walk a little bit you can probably navigate the whole city pretty easily using public transportation.
So this was great when I was traveling throughout Europe, because it was very easy to travel without a car.
That was really cool.
I think that using a car in European cities can definitely be a headache.
In English we say that something is a headache.
When it's something that's annoying, it causes you stress or worry or problems.
This is a headache.
So in Europe, driving throughout cities can definitely be a headache if these cities are very crowded, like Paris, for example.
And so it might not be very convenient to use a car and to find parking and to pay for parking and all of that.
So I think that people that live in big European cities would probably prefer to use public transportation if they can and if they feel like it's comfortable enough.
I know that it's very comfortable to be in your own car, of course, and so some people might just prefer this no matter what, but other people might just value the convenience of being able to go out, not take their car, not stress over the traffic or parking or things like that, And in big European cities you can often avoid this if you want to.
So that's pretty cool.
And in some European cities, bikes are very common.
Like in places like Amsterdam, you can ride your bike all over the city and there are tons of bikers.
And if you're in the middle of big European cities, it's very nice to walk, in my opinion, because there's a lot of beautiful architecture around you.
There are a lot of beautiful sights.
And so I think that walking in these cities can also be very pleasant experience.
It can definitely be pleasurable because you're not just walking with the intention of arriving at your destination.
You're also taking in the sights around you and appreciating them.
In English, when we say that you take in some view or take in the sights, we're saying that you actually pay attention to the view around you and you appreciate it.
So this is something cool about walking in European cities.
However, I've talked to students that live in really touristic cities, like Rome, for example, who tell me that most people who live there they walk right past these famous monuments and they don't even pay attention to them and they don't even really care about the fact that they're walking right past the Colosseum or something like that.
For tourists, this seems crazy.
We would probably think that this is awesome to see these incredible monuments every day when you walk around the city.
But for locals who have lived there for many, many years, it's probably not that exciting anymore.
So for them, they probably don't really take in all the sights every time they walk outside.
So in Europe, in my opinion, I think that using public transportation, walking and, in some cases, riding a bike could be the best ways to get around, because it might be hard to use a car in crowded cities in Europe.
This might not be the most convenient way to travel around the city.
All right, well, why don't we stop there for today?
I hope this episode was interesting for you, and I hope it was good practice for your listening.
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All right.
Well, thank you for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
