The Future of Urban Transport

2018-01-08盖亚文斯姚强

英语世界 2017年8期

文/盖亚·文斯译/姚强

文/盖亚·文斯译/姚强

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? 建设21世纪的城市离不开高效、低排放的公共交通。如何才能最好地实现这个目标，尤其是考虑到现有的基础设施？

In comparison to slums1slum贫民区。I’ve visited in other parts of the world, Rocinha favela2favela（巴西城市或边缘的）棚户区，贫民窟。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（观察事物的）有利地点。over other disenfranchised communities.

[2]However, getting here from Rio’s city centre means a perilous5perilous危险的。ride on the back of a motorbike, or more than an hour’s trudge6trudge长途跋涉。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缆索铁道。up the steep hills of the favela.Instead of a dodgy8dodgy危险的。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大杂院,住户拥挤的公寓（或地区）。.

[3]The Teleferico11teleferico〈西〉缆车。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（对犯罪嫌疑人或可能发生犯罪的地方的）监视。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“人类世” 这个词是由诺贝尔化学奖得主、荷兰科学家保罗·克鲁岑（Paul Crutzen）于2000年提出来的，他认为，自18世纪末期的工业革命开始，人类的活动已经粗暴打断了自然演化的过程，对地球环境产生了重大影响，气候温和而稳定的全新世已结束，因而建议将人类现在所处的地质年代改为“人类世”。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争夺。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直排轮滑鞋。. Ideas like the Paris rent-a-bike scheme, Velib18创建于2007年的巴黎公共自行车租赁系统。Velib由法语Velo（自行车）与liberté（自由）组合而成。这是一个非营利性的公益设施，旨在提倡巴黎市民及游客用自行车作为短距离的代步工具，发展绿色旅游。,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、规定或条件）严格的。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.

[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.

[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；暴饮。gas guzzler〈非正式〉油耗很高的车。, 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.

[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〉磁悬浮。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（棋盘式街道的）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. ■

和我游历过的世界上其他贫民窟相比，里约热内卢的罗西尼亚贫民窟显得有些“鹤立鸡群”，事实也确实如此。它坐落于高山之上，位置得天独厚：既无水患之忧，又能安享壮阔景色，居民每月只需支付300雷亚尔（148美元），就可以俯瞰圣康拉多——里约最昂贵的海滩住宅区之一，这里每月的租金高达500万雷亚尔（250万美元）。传统的社会秩序被逆转，富人不再总是“高高在上”，这也赋予了里约的贫民窟和其他贫困社区相比独一无二的优势。

[2]不过，要想从里约市中心来到罗西尼亚，往往要乘坐摩托车，一路担惊受怕，或者走上一个多小时，艰难穿行于陡峭蜿蜒的窄街陋巷，难保平安。这种情况即将改变，这也显示出可持续交通对于21世纪城市的重要性。政府已经承诺拨款5850多万美元，在罗西尼亚贫民窟陡峭的山顶修建一个缆车索道系统。这样，在人口稠密的罗西尼亚，居民和游客们不必再乘坐少年骑手的摩托艰难地骑上山坡，也不必冒着风险，费时耗力地徒步穿过曲折的街巷，就能够回到家中，或享受日常服务。

[3]连接阿莱芒贫民窟（德裔社区）和城市其他地区的阿莱芒空中缆车系统已经投入运营，它长约3.5公里，是世界上最长的缆车线路之一。以前徒步上山至少需要一个小时，而现在乘坐缆车只需15分钟。每个缆车舱都安装有太阳能面板，为照明、音响和视频监控系统提供电力。缆车站台还提供各种社区服务项目，如职业培训、教育、医疗服务和法律咨询等。这些都有利于促进经济增长，普惠民众。

重新规划

[4]在新城市时代，人口密集的大都市需要类似的创新型公共交通解决方案。地球上的汽车即将达到20亿辆。在巴西最大的城市圣保罗，通勤族有可能坐在车中忍受长达180公里（110英里）的交通堵塞。目前美国人一生中平均有9年时间在驾驶汽车。与此同时，中国现在已是世界上最大的汽车市场。自2000年以来，有车一族的人数飙升了20倍，许多城市新建的六车道公路已经变得拥堵不堪，乌烟瘴气。

[5]特大城市的交通规划并不仅仅需要拓宽或增建街道。郊区是围绕汽车而建，但是“人类世”时代的城市建设则需要以高效、低排放的公共交通为中心。中国和其他发展中国家有机会创建这种公共交通基础设施，而不是围绕汽车进行规划。因为正如其他城市的前车之鉴，围绕汽车进行城市规划会使新型替代改造方案更加难以实施。

[6]从罗西尼亚向下俯瞰，我见到出租车为了快速地铁上方的道路空间你争我夺，不禁想到在城市中心完全禁止私家车通行是何等的明智——通勤族所面对的严重交通拥堵、昂贵的停车费用和针对司机的特别税，如伦敦的交通拥堵费，这些都正在逐渐促成禁车令的实施。例如，哥伦比亚首都波哥大在周日禁止汽车通行，人们可以在街道上步行、骑自行车、溜旱冰。此外还有不少新创意，比如巴黎的Velib自行车租用计划，现已被世界各地的城市广泛效仿。用户只需支付少许费用，就可以在某个地方租用一辆自行车，骑行穿越市中心，然后在另一个地方还车。

[7]20世纪以汽车为主导的传统城市如何才能适应快速的城市化进程、高涨的汽油价格和日益严格的空气污染防治法规，现在还不得而知。从氢气到压缩空气，新型能源在未来有可能得到广泛应用，而在一些城市，汽油正在被液化天然气和电力取而代之。

[8]一旦车辆以电能作为动力，直接污染（包括臭氧和一氧化二氮）就会消失，可利用核能或可再生能源等低碳能源发电。

[9]正如日产聆风电动汽车的设计者所说，电动汽车甚至可以作为替代电源，停电时用来供电。虽然在污染物排放方面，电动汽车和传统的汽油发动机相比有所改进，但电动汽车及其电池仍会消耗大量的金属和矿物资源，例如，需要更多的稀土。而稀土如果不能有效地回收，最终会变为有毒的废物。迄今为止，完善公共交通是最佳的可持续性替代方案。

[10]当然，人们还提出了更多大胆的想法。如以Hiriko Fold为代表的轻型折叠式电动汽车，旨在吸引那些生活或工作场所附近没有公交站点、无法乘坐公共交通的通勤族。工程师们正在设计可以在大西洋下真空隧道中运行的超高速磁悬浮列车，连接欧洲和美国的城市。在中国，可以搭载数百名乘客的超级电动公交车正在研发之中，这种高架电车在轨道上跨行，离地面5米，可以避开下方拥堵的路面。

[11]然而，伟大而复杂的技术只是长期解决方案中的一部分。城市越紧凑，交通方式和其他的一切就需要更节能。真正的可持续交通始于为了行人活动而建造的城市，比如罗西尼亚以及每个20世纪之前的城市中心。“人类世”时代的特大城市需要由许多密集紧凑的人类社区组建而成，清洁、廉价、高效的交通将这些社区联系在一起。建造时不仅要满足当今城市生活的需求，使其摆脱困境，也要考虑到“人类世”的未来需要。 □