好英语网无车之城：到底有什么好处，又有哪些争议
Picture children playing games of football on major urban thoroughfares. Tourists stood in the middle of the street nonchalantly taking photos. Restaurants spilling out onto small squares – and not a car, moped or bus in sight.
孩子们在主干道上踢足球；游客们若无其事地站在街道中间拍照；从餐馆到小广场人满为患，但看不到一辆汽车、摩托车或公共汽车。
Such are my memories of Venice, the only car-free city I have ever been to, when a friend and I visited during a student hitch-hiking summer holiday. The Italian city is, of course, unique in that it is built on a series of small islands – yet it is a refreshing experience being able to wander around without dodging in and out of traffic.
这就是我记忆中的威尼斯，是我去过的唯一没有汽车的城市。学生时代，我和一个朋友在暑假搭顺风车去了那里。那座意大利城市当然独一无二，因为是建在一系列小岛上的，但耳目一新的体验，就是可以在不躲避车流的情况下漫步。
For the last 100 years, the car has come to dominate the urban landscape. Streets have been widened in many cities to accommodate automobiles, and huge amounts of space are given over to parking them. Private vehicles have revolutionised mobility, but they have also introduced many ills, from air pollution to traffic accidents. And today a small but growing number of cities are trying to design the car out of the urban landscape altogether.
过去100年里，汽车已经逐渐主宰了城市景观。许多城市拓宽了街道以容纳汽车，并留出大量空间供汽车停放。私家车彻底改变了人们的出行方式，但也带来了从空气污染到交通事故等诸多问题。如今，越来越多的小城市正在尝试规划没有汽车的城区。
Both Oslo in Norway and the Spanish capital Madrid have made headlines in recent years for their plans to ban cars from their centres – although neither have entirely got rid of them yet.
近年来，挪威奥斯陆和西班牙马德里都因禁止汽车进入市中心的计划而登上新闻头条，尽管这还没被完全执行。
Their moves toward this, however, represent a broader trend in cities to make driving more difficult. Whether it’s London’s congestion charges, Mexico City’s ‘pico y placa’ initiative (where your right to drive on different days depends on whether your license plate ends in an odd or even number) or several smaller towns such as Spain’s Pontevedra which have outright bans.
然而，这一举措代表了更广泛的趋势，那就是在城市里驾车的门槛越来越高。伦敦征收“交通拥堵费”，墨西哥城限号 (车牌尾数决定某天能否驾车)，西班牙的蓬特维德拉(Pontevedra)等几个更小的城镇完全禁止开车。
“Our main objective is to give the streets back to people,'' says Hanna Marcussen, Oslo’s vice mayor for urban development. “It is about how we want to use our streets and what the streets should be for. For us, the street should be where you meet people, eat at outdoor restaurants, where kids play, and where art is exhibited.” To do this, Oslo has closed off certain streets in the centre to cars entirely. They have also removed almost all parking spots and replaced them with cycling lanes, benches and miniature parks.
“我们的主要目标是把街道还给人们，”奥斯陆负责城市发展的副市长马库森(Hanna Marcussen)说，“这事关我们如何使用我们的街道，以及街道应该是怎样的。对我们来说，街道应该是你和他人聚会的地方，在户外餐馆吃饭的地方，孩子们玩耍的地方，艺术展览的地方。”为了做到这一点，奥斯陆已经完全禁止汽车进入市中心的某些街道。他们还拆除了几乎所有的停车位，代之以自行车道、长椅和小型公园。
There is also an environmental aspect. Oslo is built in a geological bowl, which during winter in particular, causes the city to suffer from serious air pollution problems. Data from the local government shows a marked decline in air pollution over the past decade. There has also been a drop in trips made by car – from 35% of journeys in 2009 to 27% in 2018 – with a parallel rise in people either walking or using bicycles or public transport.
还有环境方面的问题。奥斯陆建在一个盆地里，尤其是到了冬天，城市有严重的空气污染问题。当地政府的数据显示，因为禁车举措，在过去十年里，空气污染明显下降。驾车出行的比例也有所下降，从2009年的35%降至2018年的27%，而步行、骑自行车或乘坐公共交通工具的人数相应增加。
JH Crawford is perhaps the world's leading voice on car free cities and an author of two books on the topic. “Besides the well-documented problems of air pollution and the millions of deaths caused by traffic every year, the largest effect cars have on society is the tremendous damage they do to social spaces,” he says.
克劳福德（JH Crawford）或许是世界上倡导无车城市的领军人物，他还著有两本相关书籍。他说：“除了众所周知的空气污染问题和导致每年数百万人死亡的交通事故之外，汽车对社会造成的最大影响是它们对社会空间造成巨大破坏。”
Crawford's argument is that cars significantly reduce social interaction. “The places that are most popular in cities are always the spaces with no cars,” he says. They may be parks, squares or pedestrianised areas. He says that in US cities like Houston and Dallas, as much as 70% of urban land is given over to parking. “Today's housing crisis stems from a lack of land. Get rid of cars and the problem is solved immediately.”
克劳福德的观点是，汽车极大地减少了社会交往。“城市里最受欢迎的地方总是那些没有汽车的地方，”他说。这可能是公园、广场或步行区。在美国的休斯顿和达拉斯等城市，多达70%的城市土地被用于停车。“今天的住房危机源于土地缺乏。把汽车处理掉，问题马上就解决了。”
Car-free controversy
无车的争议
A city without cars sounds like a nice idea but is it possible – or even desirable? What about emergency services? Or people who have mobility problems? And what about sprawling suburbs; is the notion of going car free only relevant to young professionals who wish to live in compact city centres?
一个没有汽车的城市听起来是个不错的主意，但这可能吗？急救服务呢？那些行动不便的人怎么办？无车的概念是否只是那些生活在紧凑的城市中心的年轻专业人士才拥护?
“The quickest way to make a city centre die is to stop people getting in there,” says Hugh Bladen of the Association for British Drivers. Britain’s declining high streets won’t be helped by restrictions on driving, he argues, "otherwise town centres just get full of druggies and drunks". He acknowledges that “some towns and cities get clogged up but that's just because of poor planning; they should have better parking options”.
英国司机协会的布雷登（Hugh Bladen）说：“要想让市中心衰亡，最快的方法就是阻止人们进入市中心。”他认为，英国日渐衰落的商业街不会因为限制驾车而有所改善，“否则城镇中心就会充斥着毒品瘾君子和酒鬼。一些城镇经常交通堵塞，但那只是因为规划不当。他们应该有更好的方法解决停车问题。”
Ransford Acheampong, an urban planning researcher at the University of Manchester, says that removing cars would be helpful to reduce pollution and could improve public health “but if you take cars away from people, you need to be able to provide an alternative”. Even in Europe, which has relatively good public transport, many people’s commutes and lifestyles just wouldn't be possible without a private car.
曼彻斯特大学(University of Manchester)城市规划研究员阿切彭(Ransford Acheampong)表示，减少驾车将有助于减少污染，并可能改善公众健康。“但如果你不让人们驾驶汽车，你需要提供另一种选择”。即使在公共交通相对发达的欧洲，很多人的通勤和生活方式也离不开私家车。
This is the concept of the last mile, which is the connection between public transport and the final part of a person’s journey. Until public transport can make this gap smaller, people will still want to drive cars.
这就是“最后一英里”(the last mile)的概念。“最后一英里”指的是公共交通网络和旅程终点之间的距离。除非公共交通可以尽可能覆盖这一段路，否则人们还是会想开车。
While Oslo’s Marcussen appreciates the argument that taking away someone's car is to interfere in their freedom, she argues that “in many ways not restricting cars is limiting freedom of other people. Cars make it more difficult for children to play in the street or elderly people to cross the road. Oslo also has an air pollution problem – you could argue that cars are restricting the freedom of people with asthma who sometimes have to stay indoors when it gets too bad.”
虽然奥斯陆的马库森赞同这样一种观点，即不许驾车是对干涉他人自由，但她认为，“在许多方面，不禁止汽车就等于限制了另外一部分人的自由。”有汽车，孩子们在马路上玩耍或老人过马路都变得困难。奥斯陆也存在空气污染问题。你还可以说，汽车侵犯了哮喘病人的自由，当环境变得糟糕时，他们不得不呆在室内。
What would it take to make a city carless?
怎样才能使一个城市没有汽车呢?
In the Great City Chengdu Master Plan, everything is walkable. There are no cul-de-sacs and there is a high number of intersections which make it very easy to get around by foot or bicycle. There is also vertical connectivity, with bridges between high rises. The Great City suburb, which was designed to house 100,000 people, is only one square kilometre across and it would never take more than 10 minutes to walk from one point to another.
在成都的大都市规划（Great City Chengdu Master Plan）中，所有区域都是可以步行的。这里没有死胡同，有很多十字路口，步行或骑自行车都很方便。还有垂直连接，在高楼之间架起桥梁。这个都市郊区计划，设计容纳10万人，只有1平方公里，从一个地方步行到另一个地方不会超过10分钟。
Unfortunately it never got built, explains Chris Drew of SmithGill, the US architecture firm that was commissioned to design the suburb close to on the outskirts of Chengdu in 2012. Nonetheless, the blueprint shows how an urban area could be designed to function without cars.
美国建筑公司史密斯吉尔(SmithGill)的特鲁（Chris Drew）在2012年承接了成都市郊的这项规划设计。虽然这项设计最终没有实施，但该蓝图展示了一个没有汽车的城市区域是怎样的。
“We wanted it to be a live, work, play environment, where children could get to school without the need for a car, where people didn't have to travel great distances to work,” says Drew. With two rail connections to the rest of the city, no resident would need to drive anywhere.
特鲁说：“我们希望它成为一个适宜生活、工作和娱乐的环境，孩子们不用搭车就能上学，人们不必长途跋涉去上班。”由于有两条铁路通往城市的其它部分，居民去任何地方都无需开车。
There are a couple of other examples of new cities which have more or less designed cars out. In a previous role, Drew worked on the UAE’s Masdar City, which was originally designed to be entirely car free, although vehicles can now be found roaming its streets. SmithGill also helped design the Legacy Masterplan for Dubai's 2020 World Fair. The area is intended to be entirely walkable and largely free of cars on completion.
还有一些新城市的例子，它们或多或少都有减车的方案设计。之前特鲁曾在阿联酋的马斯达尔城（Masdar City）工作过。马斯达尔城最初的设计是完全无车的，尽管现在可以在街道上看到汽车。史密斯吉尔公司还参与了迪拜2020年世界博览会的总体规划。该地区计划建成后完全可以步行，基本上没有汽车。
Given a blank slate, Crawford describes a city of interconnected nodes, each of which would have a central tram stop or light rail surrounded by dense housing, shops and offices – residents would never live more than five minutes’ walk from public transport. In his theoretical design, the most time it would take to cross the city would be just over half an hour.
克劳福德描述了由相互连接的节点组成的城市，每一个节点都有一个中央电车站或轻轨，周围是密集的住宅、商店和办公室楼。居民区离公共交通站不会超过5分钟的步行路程。在他的概念设计中，横穿城市最多只要半个多小时。
But what about retrofitting existing cities, where most people live today? Hanna Marcussen explains the approach that Oslo took: “We began with pilots to let people see what it would be like and we began making changes little by little. For example one of the nicest squares in Oslo is outside the town hall but until recently it was full of cars. When we closed it off about a year ago, people thought it was strange – but now they think it was weird that we ever allowed cars to drive through there at all.”
但是，如何改造现有的城市呢？马库森解释了奥斯陆的做法：“我们划定试验区，让人们看到它是什么样子，然后我们开始一点一点做出改变。例如，奥斯陆最好的广场之一就在市政厅外，但这里以前挤满了汽车。当我们在一年前禁止车行的时候，人们认为这很奇怪；但是现在他们转变了观点，认为我们竟然允许汽车从这里开过去，这很奇怪。”
A car-free future?
一个无车的未来?
“If you take the optimistic view, then this is a trend that is likely to continue,” says Acheampong. “If you look at the statistics, we seem to have gone beyond ‘peak car’ ownership, and driving now seems to be in the decline. There is also a big generational difference between millennials and baby boomers,” he says, with youngsters turning away from private ownership. All of which suggests cars’ current dominance may gradually phase out of its own accord.
“如果你持乐观态度，那么这种趋势很可能会持续下去，”阿切彭说，“如果你看一下统计数据，就会发现我们的汽车保有量似乎已经走过了峰值，现在开车的人似乎在减少。千禧一代和婴儿潮一代之间也存在着巨大的代际差异。”他表示，年轻人正在放弃对私有制的执着。所有这些都表明，汽车目前的统治地位可能会自动逐渐消失。
That said, he also points out there is growing demand for new convenient mobility options; services such as Uber and Lyft are drawing people away from public transport, as may autonomous vehicles. “In the end, they're still cars,” he adds. He also notes that in much of the developing world car ownership is on the rise and governments are mainly prioritising car ownership over other forms of transport.
尽管如此，阿切彭也指出，人们对新的便捷出行方式的需求正在增长，如优步(Uber)和来福车（Lyft）等网约车的服务，以及自动驾驶的汽车，正在吸引人们远离公共交通。“终归它们还是汽车，”他补充道，在许多发展中国家，汽车保有量正在上升，政府主要还是要发展私家车，将此置于其它交通工具之上。
A lot of journeys also happen in metro areas that are nowhere near the centre of the city – think of London's M25, or Beijing, which has seven concentric ring roads. It is also relatively easy for old European cities, which existed for centuries without cars to get rid of them, but not so much elsewhere.
许多旅程都要去离市区很远的地方，虽然伦敦有M25，北京有7条环线，还是没有办法满足所有需要。对于那些几个世纪都没有汽车的欧洲老城市来说，清除汽车相对容易，但在其它地方就不那么容易了。
How far the trend for car free cities goes is yet to be seen. But when I left the car-free islands of Venice on my student hitch hiking holiday, the only way to journey onwards was to stand by the highway – and wait for a car.
无车城市的趋势会走多远，还有待观察。当我在学生时代搭便车旅行，离开无车的威尼斯群岛后，继续旅行的唯一方法就是站在高速公路旁，等一辆车来。