 How Traffic Destroys a Neighbourhood
Instructions: Match the vocabulary word in the column on the left with the correct definition on the right.
Instructions: Complete the sentences using the vocabulary words listed above. 1. Many refugees ______________ their native country and begin a new life in Canada. 2. The Eaton Centre is a ______________ place during the Christmas shopping season. 3. Increasingly, people are choosing to live in the suburbs and ______________ to the city for their work. 4. Bill Gates III has been a leading ______________ in the field of software design. 5. Surprisingly, ESL students have an ______________ appetite for learning English idioms.
$ Reading/Writing Exercise: top The Loss of a Sense of Community In the 1880s, it was two German entrepreneurs, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, who were the first to build and sell cars. A few decades later, Henry Ford ushered in the era of mass production with the introduction of his Model T Ford. The increased availability and affordability (the price of a Model T Ford was reduced from $850 in 1908 to $290 by 1925), led to a revolution in the way that people commuted for both business and pleasure. Since that time, our love affair for the automobile has grown insatiably. Small neighbourhoods which had bustling local commercial and social activities have gradually been replaced by clusters of homes and apartments separated from the downtown stores and offices. Endless rows of cars now occupy the place where children used to play games and neighbours used to socialize. It is rather ironic that the automobile, once thought to be an instrument of freedom and opportunity, has had a very damaging effect on our society. Many of the negative aspects of city life can be directly attributed to our over-dependence on the automobile. Cars isolate the young and the elderly who can not drive. Because people tend to rely on cars, most stores no longer are located within the neighbourhood. Consequently, where we once walked to a local store, we now hop in the car and drive to the mall or city centre. The fact that most people spend a surprising amount of time in cars has also led to an increase in social isolationism. When you walk down a street, you become aware of your immediate surroundings. You notice the other people on the street, the litter on the sidewalk and the community around you. When you travel down that same street isolated behind the steel and glass of an automobile, you no longer feel connected to that community. Studies, such as the one conducted by Donald Appleyard in 1970, have shown that as automobile traffic increases, there is a noticeable decrease in social interaction. Noise, traffic and pollution cause people to flee the streets and spend most of their time indoors. Neighbours tend to lose contact with one another because it is unpleasant to gather and socialize in front of their houses. Families with small children eventually leave the inner city neighbourhoods and move to the suburbs where there is more pedestrian space. There are also more tangible effects of increased use of automobiles. Since the mass production of Henry Ford’s Model T, an estimated 15 million (worldwide) individuals have lost their lives in automobile accidents. Both noise and air pollution are by-products of automobile usage. Many residents in Los Angeles, and more recently in Toronto, are encouraged to leave their cars at home and take public transportation because the smog has reached dangerous levels. Our quality of life is also affected in terms of time lost waiting in rush hour traffic and fighting our way home after a tiring day at work or school. Municipal governments are burdened with having to maintain a deteriorating infrastructure under constant assault of more and more automobiles. Approximately two billion people use an estimated 500 million automobiles in the world. A vast majority of the rest of the impoverished “pedestrian” world is eager to obtain this “instrument of freedom and opportunity”. Will our planet be able to sustain this environmental and social assault? As we embark on a new century, it might be wise to contemplate our dependence on this vehicle of “freedom”. Is it really worth the death of our neighbourhoods, or more importantly, the deterioration of our planet. 1. In paragraph one, the phrase “ushered in” means all of the following EXCEPT: 2. The tone of the passage could best be described as: 3. The author mentions all of the following as negative consequences of automobile usage EXCEPT: 4. The word “immediate” (in the 2nd paragraph) is a: 5. The expression “tangible effects” (in the 4th paragraph) means: 6. Restate the expression “as we embark on a new century” (in the last paragraph) in your own word. ____________________________________________________________________________ 7. The article mentions all of the following EXCEPT: F If you are interested in finding out more about the impact of automobiles on your neighbourhood, you can consult the following resources: Donald Appleyard
Instructions: Listen to your instructor read the transcript for a second time and then complete the following questions. Please write all of your responses in sentence format. 1. Which residents do you think are happier with their neighbourhood, those who live on Octavia Street or those who live on Gough Street? Explain. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 2. During the survey, the residents on each of the streets were asked to indicate two things on a map, what were they?____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 3. Which street would be the safest place to raise young children? Why? ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 4. Why do you think there is more communication on streets with less traffic? ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 5. How would you characterize the street that you live on? Why? ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 6. What are things that we can do to decrease the amount of traffic on our streets. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ Order of Adjectives
top 1. a(n) Canadian small thin figurine 2. a(n) sports beautiful car blue 3. wooden old oval a(n) table 4. a(n) old dirty Chinese scarf silk 5. six Swiss delicious candies chocolate 6. a(n) beautiful sweater wool yellow 7. a(n) boring old English teacher Now it’s your turn! Provide your own example of multiple adjective phrases. 8. Describe the shirt (top) you are wearing: 9. Describe the desk (table) you are working on: _________________________________________________________________________ 10. Describe your favourite piece of jewellery: _________________________________________________________________________ |
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