(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As the coronavirus pandemic continues, Bloomberg Opinion will be running a series of features by our columnists that consider the long-term consequences of the crisis. This column is part of a package on the future of transportation.
（彭博社观点）-随着冠状病毒大流行的继续，彭博社观点将运行我们专栏作家考虑到危机的长期后果的一系列功能。本专栏是有关未来运输的一揽子计划的一部分。
History is littered with radical forecasts about what the future of 21st-century urban transit might bring. Isaac Asimov’s short stories promised us sentient self-driving cars, “Back to the Future” imagined hover-boards, and “The Jetsons” predicted jet-packs. It turns out the transportation challenge facing the world’s mega-cities in 2020 looks rather more prosaic: How to help people resume their normal commutes without risking an uncontrolled Covid-19 flare-up or a return to congested, polluted streets.
关于21世纪城市交通的未来可能带来的激进预测充斥着历史。艾萨克·阿西莫夫（Isaac Asimov）的短篇小说向我们承诺，我们将开发出有感知力的自动驾驶汽车，“回到未来”想象的悬停板以及“杰森一家”预测的喷气背包。事实证明，2020年全球特大城市面临的交通挑战似乎更加平淡无奇：如何帮助人们恢复正常的通勤而又不会冒不受控制的Covid-19爆发或返回拥挤，污染的街道的风险。
The goal isn’t impossible, even if it seems elusive right now. Cities, which have bounced back from plagues, famine and wars, are unlikely to wither and fade as a result of this crisis. And public transit — however unclean, scary and cramped it looks today — is critical to getting them moving again.
目标并非不可能，即使目前看来仍然遥不可及。从这场灾难，饥荒和战争中反弹过来的城市，不太可能因这场危机而凋谢和衰落。而且，公共交通（无论今天看起来多么不干净，令人恐惧和拥挤）对于让他们再次行动至关重要。
The crisis presents urban planners with potential opportunities. The lockdown has witnessed a surge in eco-friendly mobility policies like bike lanes, scooter rentals and pedestrianized plazas, which may well prove more than fleeting trends. Such innovations will reduce congestion and make urban spaces more liveable. But the cities that flourish in the post-Covid era will be those that invest in improving the infrastructure that already exists.
这场危机为城市规划者提供了潜在的机会。此次封锁已经见证了生态友好型出行政策的激增，例如自行车道，踏板车租金和行人专用广场，这可能不仅仅是短暂的趋势。此类创新将减少交通拥堵，并使城市空间更宜居。但是，在后Covid时代蓬勃发展的城市将是那些投资于改善现有基础设施的城市。
Even in cities that have managed to contain the virus, daily life remains trapped in a kind of halfway world between the medieval, home-bound existence of lockdown and the distant dream of normalcy. Fears of infection, coupled with government guidelines on social distancing and the wearing of face masks, are conditioning how people move. Public health and cleanliness are the top criteria when it comes to choosing a mode of transportation in the current environment, according to a survey by Boston Consulting Group.
即使在已经成功控制了这种病毒的城市中，日常生活仍然陷于中世纪，家中存在的封锁与遥远的正常梦想之间的一种半途而废的世界。对感染的恐惧，加上政府关于社会疏远和戴口罩的准则，正在限制人们的行动方式。根据波士顿咨询集团的一项调查，在当前环境中选择一种交通方式时，公共卫生和清洁度是最高标准。
Many people remain either unwilling or unable to clamber onto subways or buses as before. Public transit use is running at half its normal, pre-Covid-19 rate, according to Moovit data and Bloomberg Intelligence. This shunning of public transport is, predictably, leading to a rebound in private mobility — like the dreaded car. City traffic data tracked by TomTom shows current peak congestion in China, Germany, Russia and France close to or even higher than last year’s levels.
许多人仍然不愿意或无法像以前一样爬上地铁或公共汽车。根据Moovit数据和彭博资讯的数据，公共交通的使用率是Covid-19之前的正常水平的一半。可以预见的是，公共交通的这种回避导致私人出行的反弹，就像可怕的汽车一样。 TomTom追踪的城市交通数据显示，中国，德国，俄罗斯和法国目前的交通拥堵高峰接近或高于去年的水平。
That’s spurred a counter-reaction from car skeptics. Cities from Berlin to Lisbon have rolled out almost 1,500 kilometers of new bicycle lanes, according to the European Cyclists’ Federation, often using the tools of tactical urbanism — painting lines on roads. Restaurants and cafes, eager to make up for lost business during lockdown, are covering up parking spaces with outdoor dining tables and chairs. What New York City’s former transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan called a “streetfight,” the politically-heated quest to make mega-cities liveable, is intensifying. In some cases, it’s possible “Two wheels good, four wheels bad” could win out, and maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
这激起了汽车怀疑论者的反击。据欧洲骑自行车者联合会称，从柏林到里斯本的城市已经开辟了将近1500公里的新自行车道，并经常使用战术城市化工具在道路上涂漆。急于弥补锁定期间失去的生意的餐馆和咖啡馆正在用户外餐桌和椅子掩盖停车位。纽约市前交通专员詹妮特·萨迪克汗（Janette Sadik-Khan）称之为“街战”，这是在政治上引发的使大城市宜居的追求。在某些情况下，“两个轮子好，四个轮子坏”可能会胜出，也许那并不是一件坏事。
But the new world will probably look more like the old world than we think. Past examples of urban shocks seen this millennium, from 9/11 to SARS, suggest transportation habits in cities are sticky and resilient. Research by Graham Currie, chair of public transport at Monash University in Melbourne, finds that following historical events, disruptions in public transit demand tend to last between a few weeks to two years. And surveys show people’s future transportation plans in a “normal” scenario look remarkably similar to how they moved pre-Covid.
但是新世界可能看起来比我们想象的更像旧世界。从9/11到严重急性呼吸系统综合症（SARS），这个千年过去发生的城市冲击案例表明，城市的交通习惯具有粘性和韧性。墨尔本莫纳什大学公共交通系主任格雷厄姆·柯里（Graham Currie）的研究发现，在历史事件之后，公共交通需求的中断往往持续数周至两年。调查还显示，人们在“正常”情况下的未来运输计划看起来与他们在Covid之前的行动方式非常相似。
Some lifestyle changes are probably inevitable, whether it’s more remote work or increased interest in the suburbs, but they’ll likely happen at the margins. More than half the world’s population live in cities, which concentrate people, jobs, ideas, commerce, entertainment and power. They won’t be easily cast aside.
无论是更偏远的工作还是对郊区的兴趣增加，生活方式的改变都是不可避免的，但这种改变很可能会在边缘发生。全球一半以上的人口居住在城市，这些城市集中了人，工作，思想，商业，娱乐和权力。他们不会轻易被抛弃。
So don’t be surprised if transportation demand returns to pre-virus levels soon. Assuming social-distancing rules remain in place, transportation systems will have to contend with a space crunch. Currie gives the example of Melbourne, where commuters make about 385,000 trips into the city every morning, 220,000 of them on public transport. If rail, tram and bus services can only take about 10% to 15% of the usual trips, that leaves 198,000 commuters looking for alternatives.
因此，如果运输需求很快恢复到病毒感染前的水平，请不要感到惊讶。假设仍然存在社会隔离规则，那么运输系统将不得不应对空间紧缩的问题。柯里（Currie）以墨尔本为例，每天早上，通勤者前往城市约385,000次，其中22万次乘坐公共交通工具。如果铁路，电车和公共汽车的服务仅占通常行程的10％到15％，那么有198,000名通勤者需要寻找替代方案。
Other modes of transport have limitations: Cars won’t be as effective in a city of congested streets and fewer parking spots, while bicycles and electric scooters have a way to go before they become dominant modes of transport in cities outside Denmark and the Netherlands. Road safety fears, and our aging populations, don’t help matters.
其他运输方式也有局限性：在拥挤的街道和较少的停车位的城市中，汽车的效果不佳，而自行车和电动踏板车在成为丹麦和荷兰以外城市的主要运输方式之前还有一段路要走。道路安全的担忧和人口老龄化无济于事。
Instead of letting public transit wither on the vine, cities should focus on ways to help it survive and adapt. That means delivering an experience that’s more pleasant and more sanitary than the crowded subways and buses of the pre-virus days, without going down the extreme or unaffordable route of ripping out 50% of seats. For light rail or underground trains, no revolution would be necessary: Regular cleaning, materials that are less friendly to germs, and flexible fares to encourage more travel outside of rush hour would help.
城市不应让公共交通在葡萄树上枯萎，而应着重于帮助其生存和适应的方法。这意味着要提供比病毒爆发前拥挤的地铁和公交车更加愉悦，更卫生的体验，而不必走极端或负担不起的路线，减少50％的座位。对于轻轨或地下火车，无需进行任何革命：定期清洁，对细菌较不友好的材料以及灵活的票价以鼓励在高峰时间以外进行更多旅行将有所帮助。
Bigger changes should happen at street level, though. Space that’s taken away from private vehicles should be given to buses, not just bikes. Buses can carry large groups of people in a cost-efficient and energy-efficient manner, especially with cities investing in a shift to electric vehicles. They deserve priority, if not exclusivity.
不过，应该在街道一级进行更大的更改。从私家车带走的空间应分配给公交车，而不仅仅是自行车。公交车可以以节省成本和节省能源的方式运载大量人员，尤其是在城市投资转向电动汽车的情况下。即使不是排他性的，也应优先考虑。
The movement to slow our cities down has merits also, and city-dwellers understandably want to keep the few upsides of those long lockdown months: clear skies, breathable air, and walkable streets. Pedestrian plazas and permanent bike lanes could be expanded as part of a mixed approach similar to China’s, where bike-sharing schemes and walking are encouraged to feed into rail transit.
放慢城市速度的运动也有其优点，可以理解的是，城市居民希望在漫长的封锁期中保持一些优势：晴朗的天空，透气的空气和宜人的街道。行人广场和永久性自行车道可以作为与中国类似的混合方式的一部分进行扩展，在中国，鼓励共享自行车和步行的方式进入轨道交通。
But public transportation needs to be kept at the heart of urban planning. Until cities like Paris and Milan deliver on the promise of a “15-minute city” — where residents are offered a full array of services like education, employment and healthcare within a 15-minute walk — people will need to make long cross-town journeys on a daily basis for years to come. Remote work is a luxury for the time being, and self-driving cars are nowhere near their science-fiction potential. Public transit is less exciting than jet-packs, but it works — and it’s the key to a cleaner, greener future.
但是公共交通必须保持在城市规划的核心位置。在巴黎和米兰等城市兑现“ 15分钟城市”的承诺之前（步行15分钟之内即可向居民提供教育，就业和医疗保健等全方位服务），人们将需要穿越漫长的城镇未来几年每天都会旅行。暂时，远程工作是一种奢侈，而自动驾驶汽车远未达到其科幻小说的潜力。公共交通工具没有喷气背包那么令人兴奋，但它可以起作用-这是实现更清洁，更绿色的未来的关键。
Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Brussels. He previously worked at Reuters and Forbes.
莱昂内尔·洛朗（Lionel Laurent）是涵盖布鲁塞尔的彭博舆论专栏作家。他之前曾在路透社和福布斯工作。