双语精读 || 我们在后疫情时代出行

说实话，本文中所提到的西方世界遇到的问题我们国人并不太能感同身受。在一个被称为基建狂魔的国度，我们的道路交通网已然是蛛网而非星号。不过，看《经济学人》的文章找找优越感还是很不错的体验。

📍第一段

In Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, public-transport fares have been cut in half. In London politicians leave passive-aggressive notes on civil servants’ desks telling them to turn up for work and implore people to start going back to the office. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has asked bank bosses to set an example by riding the subway.

新西兰最大的城市奥克兰的公共交通票价已经减半了。伦敦的政客们威逼利诱人民公仆（公务员），让他们回去上班，并恳求人们重返办公室。纽约市长 Eric Adams 要求银行老板们乘坐地铁上班，来树立榜样。

implore：恳求，to ask for something in an emotional way

开头描述了三个城市的三个情景，对应的是第二段“none of it seems to be working”，这些法子都不管用——城市公共交通系统还是难以恢复。

None of it seems to be working. The subway is only two-thirds as busy as it was before covid-19. Auckland’s bus system was half as busy in April as it was three years earlier. Despite fears of “ carmageddon ”, people have not swapped public transport for the private kind. They are simply moving around less.

上述这些措施似乎都没什么用。地铁客流量仅为新冠疫情爆发前的三分之二。奥克兰公交系统四月份的繁忙程度只有三年前的一半。就算担心“车毁人亡”，人们也并没有不乘坐公共交通而换开私家车。人们就只是出行得少了。

carmageddon：《死亡飞车》， a graphically violent vehicular combat 1997 PC video game.

Although travel is likely to recover a little further, a return to the pre-pandemic pattern seems implausible . One clue is that not all journeys have declined. Parisians made more shopping trips last summer than they did before covid appeared. In New York Sunday travel has held up better than weekday travel. What has collapsed is rush-hour commuting, particularly among well-paid workers in the knowledge economy . That suggests the change in behaviour is caused not by fear of infection—which might be expected to diminish over time—but by a fundamental resetting of work habits.