Mindbender

A: Marge and Bill live a quarter of the way along the straight road from Cherry to Pitt. Driving over to Ted s place, 18 kilometres north of their home, they found the old bridge was down.

"So we turn back and go via Cherry," Marge declared. "It's only 12 kilometres from Ted."

"Sure, or we could go via Pitt," Bill replied. "Same total distance either way, and they re all good straight roads."

They were also exact numbers of kilometres, so how far was Ted's place from Pitt?

B: "It's a funny shape, a trapezium," said George. "Sides 43, 87, 89 and 155 metres."

Martha smiled. "Very odd, do you happen to know the area of the lot?"

"Not offhand," George shook his head. "But it's the greatest area possible for those dimensions."

What was the area?