公路救贖: 擁堵讓中國人重拾自行車

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.

曾有幾十年的時間，在實行社會主義制度的中國，擁有一部私家車是一個遙不可及的夢想。如今，數千萬中國人已實現了這一夢想，結果卻發現，每天早上醒來後都有交通擁堵和霧霾天氣在等待着自己。

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.

北京近來空氣污染極爲嚴重，引起了全世界的關注——然而，北京遠非中國空氣質量最差的城市。汽車業分析師表示，在交通擁堵和車位緊張程度、以及通勤時間方面，越來越多的內地城市已“躋身”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.

毛澤東時代的孩子在學校裏學到的是，以上這些都是資本主義特有的問題，但當被壓抑了半個世紀的首次購車需求集中釋放時，中國城市規劃者根本無力招架。

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.

中國汽車行業的盛事——上海車展(Shanghai Auto Show)，已於上週末開幕。中國目前已成爲全球最大的汽車市場，但它正爲此付出代價。

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.

目前中國城鎮人口比例已超過一半，“霧霾和擁堵”正成爲一個重大政治問題。中國一家非政府組織(NGO)上週發佈報告稱，這麼多汽車，僅是洗車都會導致中國缺水問題加劇。

The impact is so high that some cities are even thinking the unthinkable: sending China back to its roots as a nation of cyclists.

汽車帶來了巨大的不利影響，以至於一些城市產生了一個不可思議的想法：讓中國重新成爲“自行車王國”。

“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.

浙江工業大學(Zhejiang University of Technology)研究智能交通系統的董紅召表示：“十年前，所有人都夢想有輛汽車。但當他們夢想成真後，卻發現這引發了許多問題。交通擁堵損害了我們的健康，導致了許多麻煩。”他預計，城市居民很快會受夠了交通擁堵，轉而選擇公共交通、乃至自行車出行。

Schemes by local authorities to encourage people to use bikes are popping up across the country.

中國各地政府紛紛出臺各種項目，鼓勵人們騎車出行。

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.

董紅召在杭州生活和工作。杭州是中國最著名的旅遊城市之一，但也是一個擁有1100萬人的超級大城市，人口比大倫敦(Greater London)還要多。杭州堵車之嚴重全國聞名，但該市擁有全球最大的公共自行車租賃項目，這一點同樣全國知名。

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點左右，杭州凱旋路上的公共自行車租賃點就開始忙碌起來。一位媽媽把兒子抱上自行車的兒童座，騎着車送他去上學。刷一下公交卡，她就可以免費使用自行車一小時。之後，她還可用這張可重複充值的公交卡乘坐地鐵（最近開通了新線路）、公交車或出租車。

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”.

過了一會兒，一名佩戴紅領巾的中學生推走了一輛車。接着，一位老人把一條狗放進自行車前車籃裏，推着車離開了租車點。最後又來了個年輕人——24歲的白領金奇彥（音譯）推走了該租賃點的最後一輛自行車。他需要騎一個小時才能到工作的地方。金奇彥有一輛私家車，但他說，“騎車更快、更方便，也更環保”。

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米就有一個租車點，有許多移動設備應用程序告訴用戶最近的租車點在哪裏，一小時免費期之外的租車費用從每小時1元到每小時3元不等（按超出時長分爲三個費用等級）。目前這個項目已經廣受歡迎：有40萬人每天都使用租賃自行車服務。

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.

杭州市綜合交通研究中心(Hangzhou Municipal Comprehensive Traffic Research Centre)是一家政府下屬機構。該中心的羅斌表示，杭州希望鼓勵該市100萬名私家車車主（這個數字是10年前的5倍），在騎行距離內的短途出行中不再“濫用”汽車。杭州市政府希望，步行、騎電動車或自行車出行者的比例能達到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.

其他許多城市也在大力推廣公共自行車租賃，隨便說幾個，比如蘇州、佛山、深圳、太原、長沙和成都，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.

但迄今仍沒有多少跡象表明，中國人準備賣掉自己的寶馬(BMW)，重新選擇騎車出行。今年一季度，運動型多功能汽車(SUV)的銷量同比增長45%，這很難算是中國私家車主開始環保革命的信號。

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.

羅斌承認，當前的問題在很大程度上緣於，並排停車和堵塞路口等交通違章行爲未受到嚴肅處理。益普索(Ipsos)駐上海分析師包亦農(Klaus Paur)表示：“擁堵有50%是人爲造成的。”讓中國的愛車人吃幾張罰單，比讓他們響應“騎車出行”的倡議更容易。