The Future of Urban Transport

文/蓋亞·文斯 譯/姚強

The Future of Urban Transport

文/蓋亞·文斯 譯/姚強

The 21st century city will need to be built around efficient,low-emitting mass transit. How can this best be achieved,especially with existing infrastuctures? 建設(shè)21世紀的城市離不開高效、低排放的公共交通。如何才能最好地實現(xiàn)這個目標，尤其是考慮到現(xiàn)有的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施？

In comparison to slums1slum貧民區(qū)。I’ve visited in other parts of the world, Rocinha favela2favela（巴西城市或邊緣的）棚戶區(qū)，貧民窟。in Rio de Janeiro looks streets3streets〈主英〉above the rest―literally. Its position high on the hill is advantageous because there’s no flood risk, the view is magnificent and its residents paying 300 Reais ($148) a month look down on Sao Conrado, one of the most expensive bay-side neighbourhoods in Rio, where rents go for a considerably higher 5 million Reais ($2.5million) a month. This reversal of the usual social order gives Rio’s favelas a unique vantage point4vantage point（觀察事物的）有利地點。over other disenfranchised communities.

[2]However, getting here from Rio’s city centre means a perilous5perilous危險的。ride on the back of a motorbike, or more than an hour’s trudge6trudge長途跋涉。up steeply winding,dangerous alleyways. This is about to change, and it shows how important an issue sustainable transport is to the 21st century city. The government has pledged to invest more than $58.5 million to build a cable car system and funicular7funicular纜索鐵道。up the steep hills of the favela.Instead of a dodgy8dodgy危險的。ride uphill on the back of a teenager’s motorbike, and a risky, time-consuming journey on foot through meandering9meandering曲折的。alleyways, residents and visitors will be able to access homes and services in this densely packed warren10warren大雜院,住戶擁擠的公寓（或地區(qū)）。.

[3]The Teleferico11teleferico〈西〉纜車。do Alemao, a gondola system linking the Complexo do Alemao (German Complex) favelas to the rest of the city, is already open and at 3.5 kilometres, it’s one of the longest cable car lines in the world. The journey time from base to the top has been cut from at least an hour by foot to just 15 minutes. Each cabin has a solar panel installed, which powers the lighting, sound and video surveillance12surveillance（對犯罪嫌疑人或可能發(fā)生犯罪的地方的）監(jiān)視。systems. And the stations host community services, such as job training, education,medical services, and legal advice, all helping foster growth and inclusion.

Reinvent the wheel

[4]Innovative public transport solutions like this will be needed in the denser megacities of the new urban age.The planet is moving towards two billion cars. Commuters in Brazil’s biggest city, Sao Paulo, can sit in traffic jams of up to 180km (110 miles). Americans currently spend an average of nine years of their lives sitting in their cars. China,meanwhile, is now the world’s biggest car market, with ownership going up 20-fold since 2000, and many of its cities’ new six-lane highways are already clogged13clog（使）阻塞，堵塞。with traf fi c and car fumes.

[5]Transport planning at a megacity level will require more than widening streets or providing more of them. Suburbia may have been built around the automobile, but the city of the Anthropocene14“人類世” 這個詞是由諾貝爾化學(xué)獎得主、荷蘭科學(xué)家保羅·克魯岑（Paul Crutzen）于2000年提出來的，他認為，自18世紀末期的工業(yè)革命開始，人類的活動已經(jīng)粗暴打斷了自然演化的過程，對地球環(huán)境產(chǎn)生了重大影響，氣候溫和而穩(wěn)定的全新世已結(jié)束，因而建議將人類現(xiàn)在所處的地質(zhì)年代改為“人類世”。will need to be built around effi cient, low-emitting mass transit. China and other developing countries have an opportunity to create this public transport infrastructure rather than planning around cars, which as other cities have learned makes alternative options so much harder to retro fi t15retrofit翻新。.

[6]Looking down from Rocinha, I can see the taxis jostle16jostle爭奪。for road space above the rapid underground Metro,and think how it makes sense to ban private cars from city centres altogether―something that is gradually being encouraged by the heavy congestion commuters face, expensive parking and by specific taxes for vehicle drivers,such as London’s congestion charge. In Bogota, Columbia, for example, cars are banned from the city on Sundays,when the streets fill with pedestrians,cyclists and rollerbladers17rollerblader滑旱冰的人。rollerblade直排輪滑鞋。. Ideas like the Paris rent-a-bike scheme, Velib18創(chuàng)建于2007年的巴黎公共自行車租賃系統(tǒng)。Velib由法語Velo（自行車）與liberté（自由）組合而成。這是一個非營利性的公益設(shè)施，旨在提倡巴黎市民及游客用自行車作為短距離的代步工具，發(fā)展綠色旅游。,which has since been copied in cities around the world, allows users to travel across centres by picking up a bike in one location and drop it off in another for a small fee.

[7]It’s hard to see how the traditional-car-dominated cities of the 20thcentury can survive rapid urbanisation,higher petrol prices and increasingly stringent19stringent（法律、規(guī)定或條件）嚴格的。air pollution regulations.Innovative power sources, from hydrogen to compressed air, are likely to be introduced in future, but liquid natural gas and electricity are already replacing gasoline in some cities.

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[8]Once vehicles are fuelled by electricity, direct pollution (including ozone and nitrous oxides) disappears and generation can be from low-carbon sources such as nuclear or renewables.

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[9]Electric cars can even be used as an alternative power source, discharging electricity during power cuts, as the Nissan Leaf’s designers point out.But while electric cars are an improvement on conventional gasoline burners in terms of emissions, they and their batteries still represent a metal and mineral guzzler20guzzle猛喝；暴飲。gas guzzler〈非正式〉油耗很高的車。, requiring ever-more rare earths, for example, which if not efficiently recycled, end up as toxic waste. Better public transport is by far the most sustainable alternative.

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[10]There are more ambitious ideas on the table, of course. Lightweight,folding electric cars like the Hiriko Fold aim to convince commuters who don’t live or work within walking distance of a transit station to take public transport. Engineers are designing superfast maglev21maglev〈物〉磁懸浮。trains that could run under the Atlantic in vacuum tunnels,connecting European and American cities. In China, there are designs for an electric megabus that would carry hundreds of commuters on wheeled stilts22stilt高架。, 5 metres above the ground,straddling23straddle跨立。gridlocked24gridlock（棋盤式街道的）交通大堵塞。traffic on the road beneath.

[11]However, ambitious and complex technologies are only part of the long-term solution. The more compact the city, the more energy-ef fi cient transportation and everything else is. Truly sustainable transport begins with cities built―like Rocinha, and the heart of every pre-20th century urban centre―for walking around. The megalopolises of the Anthropocene need to be built from tightly packed human-scale neighbourhoods, linked by clean, affordable,efficient transport. And it needs to do so in a way that not only addresses the current requirements and frustrations of urban living, but also accounts for our future needs in the Anthropocene. ■

和我游歷過的世界上其他貧民窟相比，里約熱內(nèi)盧的羅西尼亞貧民窟顯得有些“鶴立雞群”，事實也確實如此。它坐落于高山之上，位置得天獨厚：既無水患之憂，又能安享壯闊景色，居民每月只需支付300雷亞爾（148美元），就可以俯瞰圣康拉多——里約最昂貴的海灘住宅區(qū)之一，這里每月的租金高達500萬雷亞爾（250萬美元）。傳統(tǒng)的社會秩序被逆轉(zhuǎn)，富人不再總是“高高在上”，這也賦予了里約的貧民窟和其他貧困社區(qū)相比獨一無二的優(yōu)勢。

[2]不過，要想從里約市中心來到羅西尼亞，往往要乘坐摩托車，一路擔驚受怕，或者走上一個多小時，艱難穿行于陡峭蜿蜒的窄街陋巷，難保平安。這種情況即將改變，這也顯示出可持續(xù)交通對于21世紀城市的重要性。政府已經(jīng)承諾撥款5850多萬美元，在羅西尼亞貧民窟陡峭的山頂修建一個纜車索道系統(tǒng)。這樣，在人口稠密的羅西尼亞，居民和游客們不必再乘坐少年騎手的摩托艱難地騎上山坡，也不必冒著風(fēng)險，費時耗力地徒步穿過曲折的街巷，就能夠回到家中，或享受日常服務(wù)。

[3]連接阿萊芒貧民窟（德裔社區(qū)）和城市其他地區(qū)的阿萊芒空中纜車系統(tǒng)已經(jīng)投入運營，它長約3.5公里，是世界上最長的纜車線路之一。以前徒步上山至少需要一個小時，而現(xiàn)在乘坐纜車只需15分鐘。每個纜車艙都安裝有太陽能面板，為照明、音響和視頻監(jiān)控系統(tǒng)提供電力。纜車站臺還提供各種社區(qū)服務(wù)項目，如職業(yè)培訓(xùn)、教育、醫(yī)療服務(wù)和法律咨詢等。這些都有利于促進經(jīng)濟增長，普惠民眾。

重新規(guī)劃

[4]在新城市時代，人口密集的大都市需要類似的創(chuàng)新型公共交通解決方案。地球上的汽車即將達到20億輛。在巴西最大的城市圣保羅，通勤族有可能坐在車中忍受長達180公里（110英里）的交通堵塞。目前美國人一生中平均有9年時間在駕駛汽車。與此同時，中國現(xiàn)在已是世界上最大的汽車市場。自2000年以來，有車一族的人數(shù)飆升了20倍，許多城市新建的六車道公路已經(jīng)變得擁堵不堪，烏煙瘴氣。

[5]特大城市的交通規(guī)劃并不僅僅需要拓寬或增建街道。郊區(qū)是圍繞汽車而建，但是“人類世”時代的城市建設(shè)則需要以高效、低排放的公共交通為中心。中國和其他發(fā)展中國家有機會創(chuàng)建這種公共交通基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，而不是圍繞汽車進行規(guī)劃。因為正如其他城市的前車之鑒，圍繞汽車進行城市規(guī)劃會使新型替代改造方案更加難以實施。

[6]從羅西尼亞向下俯瞰，我見到出租車為了快速地鐵上方的道路空間你爭我奪，不禁想到在城市中心完全禁止私家車通行是何等的明智——通勤族所面對的嚴重交通擁堵、昂貴的停車費用和針對司機的特別稅，如倫敦的交通擁堵費，這些都正在逐漸促成禁車令的實施。例如，哥倫比亞首都波哥大在周日禁止汽車通行，人們可以在街道上步行、騎自行車、溜旱冰。此外還有不少新創(chuàng)意，比如巴黎的Velib自行車租用計劃，現(xiàn)已被世界各地的城市廣泛效仿。用戶只需支付少許費用，就可以在某個地方租用一輛自行車，騎行穿越市中心，然后在另一個地方還車。

[7]20世紀以汽車為主導(dǎo)的傳統(tǒng)城市如何才能適應(yīng)快速的城市化進程、高漲的汽油價格和日益嚴格的空氣污染防治法規(guī)，現(xiàn)在還不得而知。從氫氣到壓縮空氣，新型能源在未來有可能得到廣泛應(yīng)用，而在一些城市，汽油正在被液化天然氣和電力取而代之。

[8]一旦車輛以電能作為動力，直接污染（包括臭氧和一氧化二氮）就會消失，可利用核能或可再生能源等低碳能源發(fā)電。

[9]正如日產(chǎn)聆風(fēng)電動汽車的設(shè)計者所說，電動汽車甚至可以作為替代電源，停電時用來供電。雖然在污染物排放方面，電動汽車和傳統(tǒng)的汽油發(fā)動機相比有所改進，但電動汽車及其電池仍會消耗大量的金屬和礦物資源，例如，需要更多的稀土。而稀土如果不能有效地回收，最終會變?yōu)橛卸镜膹U物。迄今為止，完善公共交通是最佳的可持續(xù)性替代方案。

[10]當然，人們還提出了更多大膽的想法。如以Hiriko Fold為代表的輕型折疊式電動汽車，旨在吸引那些生活或工作場所附近沒有公交站點、無法乘坐公共交通的通勤族。工程師們正在設(shè)計可以在大西洋下真空隧道中運行的超高速磁懸浮列車，連接歐洲和美國的城市。在中國，可以搭載數(shù)百名乘客的超級電動公交車正在研發(fā)之中，這種高架電車在軌道上跨行，離地面5米，可以避開下方擁堵的路面。

[11]然而，偉大而復(fù)雜的技術(shù)只是長期解決方案中的一部分。城市越緊湊，交通方式和其他的一切就需要更節(jié)能。真正的可持續(xù)交通始于為了行人活動而建造的城市，比如羅西尼亞以及每個20世紀之前的城市中心。“人類世”時代的特大城市需要由許多密集緊湊的人類社區(qū)組建而成，清潔、廉價、高效的交通將這些社區(qū)聯(lián)系在一起。建造時不僅要滿足當今城市生活的需求，使其擺脫困境，也要考慮到“人類世”的未來需要。 □

未來的城市交通

ByGaia Vince

（譯者曾獲第六屆“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽一等獎）