经济学人:智能卡片取代现金 人们无处可去?(1)

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　　Chile: Going Nowhere 智利：无处可去

　　The Capital's public transport system is sputtering¹. 智利首都的交通系统饱受诟病。

　　Transantiago, the Chilean capital's public-transport system, had its tenth birthday in February, but no one celebrated². 智利首都的公共交通系统“圣地亚哥通”在二月份迎来了十岁的生日，但是没有人为之欢欣鼓舞。

　　Launched with much fanfare³, the scheme was supposed to integrate bus and metro⁴ lines and speed up traffic. 在一片锣鼓喧天中，圣地亚哥通开始问世，该项计划原本预计能够整合公交和地铁线路从而让交通更为快捷。

　　Smog-spewing yellow buses disappeared. 喷着烟雾的黄色公交消失了。

　　Smart cards replaced cash. 智能卡片取代了现金。

　　But Transantiago is sputtering. 但是，圣地亚哥通饱受争议。

　　Fare evasion⁵ is rampant⁶, journeys are getting slower and the state has spent billions of dollars to prop⁷ up private bus operators. 逃票现象很猖獗，出行速度越来越慢，同时政府已经花费数十亿美元来赞助民营公交运营商。

　　Passengers sometimes wait ages at stops scrawled⁸ with graffiti with no inkling of when the next bus will arrive. 有时，乘客得在画满涂鸦的站牌下，等候着不知什么时候到站的巴士。

　　Espacio Publico, a think-tank, calls Transantiago Chile's worst public-policy project since the country returned to democracy in 1990. 一家名为Espacio Publico的智囊团机构把圣地亚哥通称为智利自1990年恢复民主制以来最糟糕的公共决策项目。

　　Despite all that, Transantiago has brought some improvements. 尽管如此，圣地亚哥通还是有了一些改进。

　　The number of fatal accidents has dropped sharply, as has pollution from exhaust fumes⁹. 意外死亡事故与空气废弃污染量都有明显降低。

　　The system's 20,000 employees are now on formal contracts and have better working conditions than before. 该系统目前有2万名员工签署了正式合同，工作环境较之前也更好。

　　Because bus drivers no longer handle cash, the number of robberies has fallen. 由于司机不再收取现金，抢劫发生的数量也下降了。

　　Compared with transport in many other Latin American cities, Santiago's works pretty well. 比起其他拉美国家的交通来说，圣地亚哥的确做得非常不错。

　　But it would be hard to persuade most commuters of that. 但是，这很难说服大多数的通勤者。

　　The problems start with design. 这些问题源于其本身的设计。

　　Planners laid some bus lanes directly over metro lines, so the two forms of transport compete rather than complementing¹⁰ each other. 设计者们让一些公交车道直接经过地铁线上方，所以造成了两种交通方式共同竞争，而不是相互帮补。

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