交通部門欲打造京津冀鐵路網

On a bad day, driving the 30 kilometers from Beijing's airport to the city's center can take up to an hour. If urban planners have their way, residents of the megalopolis of Beijing and Tianjin and the surrounding province of Hebei in six years will be able to cross that entire urban sprawl in roughly the same amount of time.

趕上不順的時候，從北京機場到市中心的30公里路程，開車可能要花上一個小時。如果市政規劃部門進展順利，北京、天津兩大都市以及附近河北省的居民六年後將能夠以同樣這麼多的時間橫穿京津冀。

On Tuesday, official Chinese media, citing a recent media interview with a Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport official, said that 9,500 kilometers of railway lines will crisscross the regional hub of 100 million people -- awkwardly called Jing-Jin-Ji -- by 2020. Under the plan, dwellers of the two-city, one-province urban jungle will be able to travel between major centers by rail in just 60 minutes.

週二，中國官方媒體援引北京市交通委員會一位官員最近接受採訪時的講話稱，到2020年，擁有1億人口的京津冀將形成9,500公里的鐵路網。根據這一計劃，這兩市一省的居民坐火車只需60分鐘就能完成京津冀兩座主要城市之間的穿行。

That should be good news to Beijing's beleaguered commuters, many of whom use private cars to get to work giving rise to some of the worst traffic congestion in the world.

對於在北京飽受通勤之苦的上班族來說，這應該是個好消息。他們中的許多人開私家車上班，使北京出現了全球最嚴重的交通擁堵。

Every workday in 2013, traffic jams in the city lasted one hour and 50 minutes on average, up 25 minutes from the year-earlier period, according to the commission.

北京市交通委員會的數據顯示，北京在2013年平均每個工作日會有持續1小時50分鐘的交通擁堵，擁堵時間較上年延長了25分鐘。

During vacation periods, traffic jams can sometimes be even worse as hordes take to the roads to escape the capital. In the recent May Day holiday, a traffic jam of 55 kilometers in length formed on one of the highways leaving Beijing, according to the website of state-controlled China Radio International.

在節假日，交通擁堵情況有時會更加嚴重，因爲會有很多人開車離開北京。官方媒體中國國際廣播電臺(China Radio International)網站的消息稱，在最近這個五一勞動節，出京方向的一條高速路上曾出現長達55公里的擁堵。

For now there appears to be no sign of a let-up in Chinese desire to own a car. Last year almost 18 million passenger cars were sold in the country, making it the world's largest market. Consultancy IHS Automotive forecasts that figure to grow by just over 10% this year.

目前看來，中國民衆買車的願望似乎還沒有減弱的跡象。去年，中國的乘用車銷量將近1,800萬輛，從而使中國成爲全球最大的汽車市場。諮詢公司IHS Automotive預計，今年中國乘用車銷量的增幅將略高於10%。

Experts say poor urban planning is also at fault and say cities like Beijing put too much emphasis on building infrastructure and not enough on integrating different transport modes such as rail and road or building up robust public transportation systems.

專家稱，糟糕的市政規劃也有責任。他們說，北京等城市過於重視修建基礎設施，但卻沒有對整合鐵路、公路等不同的交通方式以及建立強大的公共交通體系予以足夠重視。

Still, Beijing city planners' increased attention to suburban rail offers some hope that life in what combined would be the world's largest city might be about to get a little easier.

不過，隨着北京市政規劃部門對城市鐵路更加關注，人們會產生這樣的希望：在一體化之後的京津冀這個全球最大城市，人們的生活可能會變得輕鬆一點。