【中文标题】北京的自行车道
【原文标题】The Bike Lanes of Beijing
【登载媒体】纽约客
【原文作者】Evan Osnos
【原文链接】http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/03/the-bike-lanes-of-beijing.html
在纽约的交通问题上，中国通讯员很少能帮的上忙，可是我的同事John Cassidy刚刚遇到这样一件事情。他写了一篇文章，质问为什么城市里需要修建那么多的自行车道，这篇文章像一个避雷针一样为他引来了许多关注。他在文章中说，市政厅的人有时说他“试图把纽约变成阿姆斯特丹或者北京。”（他的反对者因此给他扣上“赤色分子”的帽子）。现在，他的文章已经被用来做有关阶级、汽车和民主的心理测试。那么我会站在一个曾经与阶级、汽车和民主较劲过若干次的国家角度，发表一些看法。
首先我们来分个类。北京至少存在三种截然不同的自行车道，其中最豪华的，我们管它叫商务舱，是一条沥青铺就的道路，用人行道或者几棵树与汽车道分开。
第二种，经济舱，与汽车共用主干道，但是享有在最靠近人行道的一边通行的特权。John担心这种模式会霸占路边的停车位。
第三类，我们称其为高端经济舱，所有条件都包括在内：一条停车道、一条自行车道和至少两条汽车道。好处和弊端在于，所有人都各行其道，但是这恐怕需要拓宽北京的许多道路，至少达到7车道，是现在宽度的两倍。就像一个来此访问的城市规划工程师曾经说过的，这样的变化可以减少一些单纯以“提升市场对沥青的需求”为目的而修建的道路。道路两边的建筑物要重新规划（过程中或许会发生冲突），门脸房全部改头换面。这些问题都不是自行车引起的——毫无疑问，拓宽的道路主要是为汽车服务——但任何一种选择都有相应的代价。
在那些企图追随早先的亲共分子而来到北京的自行车爱好车登上飞机之前，必须要了解，自行车产业自从1995年以来就开始衰退，汽车逐渐侵蚀了自行车道。这个国家已经迅速地脱离了对人力两轮交通工具的依赖，19实际末期的形象早已不复存在，现在街上跑的都是“洋马”和“电驴子”。我很高兴地向大家介绍一个替代自行车的产品——电动自行车，18个月以来我一直在骑电动自行车。没错，我是自行车的狂热支持者，如果自行车道消失，我肯定会四处奔走呼吁。如果要比较一下太平洋两岸的这两个国家的情况，我更加支持纽约时报Ed Wong的观点。10年前，他骑自行车逛遍了北京城，同样也走遍了纽约，当然是在自行车道消失之前。他写道：
在城市里骑自行车是一个愉快的过程，当然搭乘地铁也不错的选择，但是毫不夸张地说，我每天都要面临死里逃生的经历。相比起来，在北京骑车可以呼吸到一些新鲜空气（或者是尽可能新鲜的空气），专用自行车道给了我安全感，在纽约没有这样的感觉。有人说自行车道造成了城里交通的拥堵，在北京人看来，这是一个荒谬的观点。有研究表明北京是世界上交通堵塞最严重的城市之一。造成这种局面的原因很多，但我尚未听到有任何专家把自行车道也列为原因之一。
不可否认的事实是北京的道路越来越多，道路上的驾驶员也越来越多。但是我在担心，这些嘈杂的声音会淹没John真正的观点，他并不讨厌自行车道，而是不喜欢城市规划方案强加在自己身上的感觉。就像他所说：“很多事情需要公民投票来表决，而不是靠强硬的官僚命令。”官僚命令是我们在北京会见识到的另外一个有趣的事物。目前很多人都相当欣赏北京筹划公众资源来高效发展的能力，比如在山坡上安装风力涡轮；今年在城内修建8条地铁线路（没错，是8条）。但是，在这其中值得羡慕的也就是这个城市勇于发展和投资的野心，而不是通过剥夺人民参与选择的权力而形成的表面高效。就像我们在这里天天看到的，没有合法手续就拆除房屋，目的当然是加快城市的现代化进程，让居住环境更美好，但同时也毒害了城市中的政治环境。如果这真是一个好的主意，那么它必定会得到公众投票的支持。
原文：
There aren’t many New York transport issues on which the China correspondent can lend a hand, but my colleague John Cassidy has found one. In his lightning-rod of a post questioning whether the city needs so many bike lanes, he mentioned that, at times, City Hall looks to him, “intent on turning New York into Amsterdam, or perhaps Beijing.” (His accusers thus added red-baiting to the indictment.) Now that his piece has been elevated into a Rorschach test on class, cars, and democracy, I’ll offer a perspective from a place that has wrestled once or twice with issues of class, cars, and democracy.
First, a taxonomy. Beijing has at least three definable species of bike lane. The most luxurious, which we’ll call Business Class, is a ribbon of designated asphalt set off from the car world by a sidewalk and often a tree or two:
The second variety, Economy Class, shares the roadway with cars and buses, but takes up the prized area beside the curb, monopolizing the space for parking that has John concerned.
The third species, which we’ll call Economy Plus, has elements of both: a line of parked cars, a lane for bikes, and at least two lanes for autos. Pros and cons: Everybody gets their lane, but that has required widening some of Beijing’s roads to at least seven lanes, and very often twice that, producing not so much roads as “exalting deserts of tarmac,” as a visiting urban planner once put it. Along the way, the buildings on either side get leveled (with or without a fight) and neighborhoods are altered. None of this is the fault of the bike lanes—the roads are being widened, without question, for cars—but none of the options are without tradeoffs.
Before cyclists start boarding flights for Beijing like the fellow travellers of yore, know that bicycle production has been falling since 1995 here, and the lanes have been gobbled up by cars ever since. The country has been rapidly losing its attachment to the human-powered two-wheeler that it first glimpsed in the late nineteenth century and regarded as a “foreign horse” or a “little mule that you drive by the ears.” One of the replacements, I’m pleased to say, is the electric bike, which I’ve been driving by the ears for eighteen months and counting. Not surprisingly, I’m an ardent fan of the bike lanes and would seriously rethink my own e-bike evangelism if they disappeared. For a comparison of the situation on both sides of the Pacific, I turned to Ed Wong of the Times. He pedals all over this town, and did so as well in New York a decade ago, before bike lanes had taken off. His take:
It was always a joy biking through the city, definitely preferable to taking the subway, but it’s no exaggeration to say that I had a close call on virtually all my rides. By comparison, biking in Beijing has been a breath of fresh air (or as fresh as air can be here.) The bike lanes give me a sense of security that was always absent from my experience in New York. As for the argument that bike lanes lead to automobile congestion, that seems absurd from a Beijinger’s point of view. Some studies show that Beijing is now the most congested city in the world. There are many reasons for this, but I have yet to hear any transportation expert cite the bike lanes as a factor.
No question that as Beijing has built more roads, drivers have expanded to fill them. But I fear that all of this braying has obscured John’s point that it is not the presence of the lanes he resents, but the manner in which they are being foisted upon him. As he argues, “it should be put to a vote rather than being enacted via bureaucratic diktat.” Bureaucratic diktats are something else that we in Beijing know well. It’s fashionable these days to admire Beijing’s ability to marshal public resources to do things efficiently, whether it’s installing wind turbines on the hillsides or embarking on another eight (yes, eight) new subway lines this year. But the part worth envying is the ambition of a city to envision bold changes and investments—not the ostensible efficiency of a system that deprives people of the right to participate in those choice. As we see everyday here, knocking down houses without adequate due process, in order to modernize the city, might make those neighborhoods more hospitable, but it also has a toxic effect on the political health of the city. Good ideas are good enough to put to a vote. |
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