 For decades under communism, owning a private car was an impossible dream in China. Now that the dream has come true for tens of millions of Chinese, they are waking up each day to a life of traffic jams and smog. 曾有几十年的时间，在实行社会主义制度的中国，拥有一部私家车是一个遥不可及的梦想。如今，数千万中国人已实现了这一梦想，结果却发现，每天早上醒来后都有交通拥堵和雾霾天气在等待着自己。 Beijing’s air pollution has been so bad recently that it has captured headlines around the world – yet the capital has far from the dirtiest air in China. More and more mainland cities can boast world-class traffic congestion, parking shortages and commuting times, auto analysts say. 北京近来空气污染极为严重，引起了全世界的关注——然而，北京远非中国空气质量最差的城市。汽车业分析师表示，在交通拥堵和车位紧张程度、以及通勤时间方面，越来越多的内地城市已“跻身”世界前列。 Under Chairman Mao Zedong, schoolchildren were taught that these were the ills associated with capitalism, but China’s urban planners were no match for half a century of pent-up demand from first-time car buyers. 毛泽东时代的孩子在学校里学到的是，以上这些都是资本主义特有的问题，但当被压抑了半个世纪的首次购车需求集中释放时，中国城市规划者根本无力招架。 The country, whose showpiece industry event – the Shanghai Auto Show – starts this weekend, is now the world’s largest car market. And it is paying the price. 中国汽车行业的盛事——上海车展(Shanghai Auto Show)，已于上周末开幕。中国目前已成为全球最大的汽车市场，但它正为此付出代价。 With more than half of all Chinese living in cities, “smog and clog” are becoming big political issues. Even washing all those cars is exacerbating the country’s water shortage, according to a report last week from a Chinese NGO. 目前中国城镇人口比例已超过一半，“雾霾和拥堵”正成为一个重大政治问题。中国一家非政府组织(NGO)上周发布报告称，这么多汽车，仅是洗车都会导致中国缺水问题加剧。 The impact is so high that some cities are even thinking the unthinkable: sending China back to its roots as a nation of cyclists. 汽车带来了巨大的不利影响，以至于一些城市产生了一个不可思议的想法：让中国重新成为“自行车王国”。 “Ten years ago, everyone dreamt of owning a car. But after they realised that dream, they found it has caused a lot of problems,” says Dong Hongzhao of the Intelligent Traffic System programme at Zhejiang University of Technology. “Traffic congestion has harmed our health and caused a lot of inconvenience,” he adds, predicting that urbanites will soon be fed up enough to opt for public transport, or even bicycles. 浙江工业大学(Zhejiang University of Technology)研究智能交通系统的董红召表示：“十年前，所有人都梦想有辆汽车。但当他们梦想成真后，却发现这引发了许多问题。交通拥堵损害了我们的健康，导致了许多麻烦。”他预计，城市居民很快会受够了交通拥堵，转而选择公共交通、乃至自行车出行。 Schemes by local authorities to encourage people to use bikes are popping up across the country. 中国各地政府纷纷出台各种项目，鼓励人们骑车出行。 Hangzhou, the city where Mr Dong lives and works, is one of China’s most famous tourist cities but is also a municipality of 11m people, bigger than Greater London. It is famous throughout China for its traffic jams – but also for having the world’s largest public bicycle rental scheme. 董红召在杭州生活和工作。杭州是中国最著名的旅游城市之一，但也是一个拥有1100万人的超级大城市，人口比大伦敦(Greater London)还要多。杭州堵车之严重全国闻名，但该市拥有全球最大的公共自行车租赁项目，这一点同样全国知名。 An hour after sunrise, the public bicycle stand on Kaixuan Road in Hangzhou starts to get busy. A mother loads her small son on to the bike’s child seat to deliver him to school. She swipes the public transport card that gives her an hour on the bike for free – the same rechargeable card she can later use for a ride on Hangzhou’s new subway line, a public bus or taxi. 早上7点左右，杭州凯旋路上的公共自行车租赁点就开始忙碌起来。一位妈妈把儿子抱上自行车的儿童座，骑着车送他去上学。刷一下公交卡，她就可以免费使用自行车一小时。之后，她还可用这张可重复充值的公交卡乘坐地铁（最近开通了新线路）、公交车或出租车。 Later, a middle school pupil wearing the red neckerchief of the Communist party’s Young Pioneers pulls out a bike, then an old man with a dog in the front basket, and finally 24-year-old white-collar worker Jin Qiyan takes the last cycle for his one-hour commute to work. Mr Jin owns a car, but says “it’s faster, more convenient and more environmentally friendly by bike”. 过了一会儿，一名佩戴红领巾的中学生推走了一辆车。接着，一位老人把一条狗放进自行车前车篮里，推着车离开了租车点。最后又来了个年轻人——24岁的白领金奇彦（音译）推走了该租赁点的最后一辆自行车。他需要骑一个小时才能到工作的地方。金奇彦有一辆私家车，但他说，“骑车更快、更方便，也更环保”。 With a rental stand every 300m in downtown areas, mobile apps that tell users where to find the closest available bicycle, and fees that rise from Rmb1 to Rmb3 an hour, the scheme is already very popular: as many as 400,000 people use it every day. 在杭州市中心的街道旁，每隔300米就有一个租车点，有许多移动设备应用程序告诉用户最近的租车点在哪里，一小时免费期之外的租车费用从每小时1元到每小时3元不等（按超出时长分为三个费用等级）。目前这个项目已经广受欢迎：有40万人每天都使用租赁自行车服务。 Hangzhou wants to encourage the city’s 1m car owners (a figure that has quintupled in the past decade) to stop “misusing” their vehicles for short trips that could be made by bike, says Luo Bin of the Hangzhou Municipal Comprehensive Traffic Research Centre, a quasi governmental organisation. The city government wants 50 to 60 per cent of people walking, riding electric bikes or push bikes. 杭州市综合交通研究中心(Hangzhou Municipal Comprehensive Traffic Research Centre)是一家政府下属机构。该中心的罗斌表示，杭州希望鼓励该市100万名私家车车主（这个数字是10年前的5倍），在骑行距离内的短途出行中不再“滥用”汽车。杭州市政府希望，步行、骑电动车或自行车出行者的比例能达到50%至60%。 Other cities such as Suzhou, Foshan, Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Changsha, Shanghai and Chengdu, to name just a few, are also pushing public bicycle rental. 其他许多城市也在大力推广公共自行车租赁，随便说几个，比如苏州、佛山、深圳、太原、长沙和成都，等等。 But so far there are few signs that the Chinese are ready to trade in their BMWs and go back to bicycles: in the first quarter of this year, sales of SUVs rose 45 per cent year on year – hardly a sign of an environmental revolution among Chinese drivers. 但迄今仍没有多少迹象表明，中国人准备卖掉自己的宝马(BMW)，重新选择骑车出行。今年一季度，运动型多功能汽车(SUV)的销量同比增长45%，这很难算是中国私家车主开始环保革命的信号。 Mr Luo acknowledges that a big part of the current problem is failure to enforce laws against traffic violations such as double parking and blocking intersections. “Fifty per cent of the congestion is made by people themselves,” says Klaus Paur, of Ipsos consultancy in Shanghai. Handing out a few traffic tickets may be easier than getting China’s car lovers to obey the decree: let them ride bikes. 罗斌承认，当前的问题在很大程度上缘于，并排停车和堵塞路口等交通违章行为未受到严肃处理。益普索(Ipsos)驻上海分析师包亦农(Klaus Paur)表示：“拥堵有50%是人为造成的。”让中国的爱车人吃几张罚单，比让他们响应“骑车出行”的倡议更容易。 |
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