[Economist] 城市交通：出轨（下）

This is a headache for the operators of public-transport systems. It is also a problem for cities. Like it or not—and many people do not—mass public transport does some things very well. It provides a service for people who are too old, too young, too poor, too fearful or too drunk to drive or ride a bike. Trains and subways cause less pollution than cars and move people at far higher densities. The danger is that public transport could become a rump service, ever less popular and ever less good, partly because of its unpopularity. Fewer passengers mean fewer trains and buses, which leads to longer waits for those who persist with them. Cars, whether driven or driverless, will clog the roads.

对公共交通的管理者而言这是让人头痛的问题。对城市而言也同样。 不论你是否喜欢公共交通，确实有很多人不喜欢，大量公共交通的存在确实有许多益处。它为那些年老、年幼、贫穷、害怕或者醉酒后不能驾驶或骑行的人提供了一种出行方式。火车和地铁比汽车造成的污染更少，同时运输的人员更多。真正的问题在于随着公共交通越来越不受欢迎以及服务品质降低使得其不得人心，最终使得公共交通变得可有可无。乘客变少意味着火车和巴士数量的减少，这就导致选择公交出行的人需要等待更长的时间。汽车，不论是有人驾驶还是无人驾驶，终将占领道路。

To some extent, that dystopian future can be seen off by pricing road use properly. Many cities, particularly in America, generously subsidise driving by forcing developers to provide lots of parking spaces. Elsewhere, cities have created congestion-charging zones. But that is a hopelessly crude tool. Most congestion zones in effect sell daily tickets to drive around as much as you like within the zone—and charge nothing to vehicles such as taxis and minicabs. It would be much better to charge for each use of a road, with higher prices for busy ones.

在某种程度上，这个并非乌托邦的未来可以通过合理的对道路使用进行定价来避免。许多城市，特别是美国的某些城市，慷慨的通过强制要求开发商提供大量的停车位来支持自驾出行。在别处，许多城市出台了进城费。但这确实没什么前景的粗糙手段。大多数进城费一次性收取一天的费用，然后你就可以在相应区域内随意行驶，但对出租车却不收取任何费用。对每一条道路单独收费，并且对多次通行者收取更高的费用将会更好。

Transport agencies should also embrace the upstarts, and copy them. Cities tend either to ignore app-based services or to try to push them off the streets. That is understandable, given the rules-are-for-losers attitude of firms like Uber. But it is an error. Although new forms of transport often compete with old ones in city centres, they ought to complement each other in suburbs. Taxi services and e-bikes could get people to and from railway stations and bus stops, which are often inconveniently far apart outside the urban core. 运输公司同样应当拥抱初创企业，然后模仿他们。城市倾向于要么完全无视基于 APP 的打车服务，要么严禁其提供服务。考虑到存在认为规则只适用于弱小者的公司诸如 Uber 的存在，这是不可理解的。但这却是个错误。尽管许多新公司往往会在市中心和老公司展开竞争，他们应该在城郊补充对方的存在。出租车和电动自行车可以方便人们从地铁站和公交站往返，但对于那些远离市中心的人而言依旧不够方便。

She’s got a ticket to ride, but she don’t care
她只有一张骑车的车票，却并不担心
It is doubtful that most people make hard distinctions between public and private transport. They just want to get somewhere, and there is a cost in time, money and comfort. An ideal system would let them move across a city for a single payment, transferring from trains to taxis to bicycles as needed. Building a platform to allow that is hard, and requires much sweet-talking of legacy networks as well as technology firms—though a few cities, like Helsinki and Birmingham, in England, are trying. It is probably the secret to keeping cities moving.

许多人刻意强调公共和私人交通之间的却别这点很让人疑惑。人们想要去往某地，而在这个过程中会产生时间、金钱和舒适度的成本。理想化的体系应当使得人们只需单次付费就可以横穿城市，并且可以依据需求换火车、出租车或者自行车。构建这样的一个体系困难重重，并且需要在立法体系和可以公司之间往来沟通，仍然，一些城市比如赫尔辛斯基以及伯明翰正在努力尝试。这或许就是使得城市保持运转的秘密。