A new study conducted for the World Bank by Murdoch University's Institute for Science and Technology Policy (ISTP) has demonstrated that public transport is more efficient than cars. The study compared the proportion of wealth poured into transport by thirty-seven cities around the world. This included both the public and private costs of building, maintaining and using a transport system.

由默多克大学科技政策研究所（ISTP）为世界银行开展的一项新研究显示，公共交通比汽车更高效。该研究比较了全球37个城市的交通支出占其财富的比例，包括建设、维护和使用交通系统所产生的公共与私人成本。

The study found that the Western Australian city of Perth is a good example of a city with minimal public transport. As a result, 17% of its wealth went into transport costs. Some European and Asian cities, on the other hand, spent as little as 5%. Professor Peter Newman, ISTP Director, pointed out that these more efficient cities were able to put the difference into attracting industry and jobs or creating a better place to live.

研究发现，西澳大利亚州的珀斯市是公共交通极为有限的城市的一个典型例子。因此，该市17%的财富用于交通支出。相比之下，一些欧洲和亚洲城市则将这一比例降至低至5%。ISTP主任彼得·纽曼教授指出，这些效率更高的城市能够将节省下来的资金用于吸引产业和就业，或创造更宜居的生活环境。

According to Professor Newman, the larger Australian city of Melbourne is a rather unusual city in this sort of comparison. He describes it as two cities: 'A European city surrounded by a car-dependent one'. Melbourne's large tram network has made car use in the inner city much lower, but the outer suburbs have the same car-based structure as most other Australian cities. The explosion in demand for accommodation in the inner suburbs of Melbourne suggests a recent change in many people's preferences as to where they live.

据纽曼教授所说，澳大利亚较大的城市墨尔本在这样的比较中显得颇为特殊。他将其描述为“一座被汽车依赖型城市环绕的欧洲城市”。墨尔本庞大的有轨电车网络使得市中心地区的汽车使用率大幅降低，但郊区的交通结构却与大多数其他澳大利亚城市一样以汽车为主。墨尔本市中心郊区住宿需求的激增，表明许多人近期对居住地的偏好发生了变化。

Newman says this is a new, broader way of considering public transport issues. In the past, the case for public transport has been made on the basis of environmental and social justice considerations rather than economics. Newman, however, believes the study demonstrates that 'the auto-dependent city model is inefficient and grossly inadequate in economic as well as environmental terms'.

纽曼表示，这是一种全新的、更广泛的方式来思考公共交通问题。过去，公共交通的倡导主要基于环境和社会正义方面的考虑，而非经济因素。然而，纽曼认为，这项研究证明了“依赖汽车的城市模式在经济和环境方面都低效且严重不足”。

Bicycle use was not included in the study but Newman noted that the two most 'bicycle friendly' cities considered - Amsterdam and Copenhagen - were very efficient, even though their public transport systems were 'reasonable but not special'.

自行车使用未被纳入该研究，但纽曼指出，所考虑的两个“最友好于自行车”的城市——阿姆斯特丹和哥本哈根——效率非常高，尽管它们的公共交通系统“合理但并不特别”。

It is common for supporters of road networks to reject the models of cities with good public transport by arguing that such systems would not work in their particular city. One objection is climate. Some people say their city could not make more use of public transport because it is either too hot or too cold. Newman rejects this, pointing out that public transport has been successful in both Toronto and Singapore and, in fact, he has checked the use of cars against climate and found 'zero correlation'.

支持道路网络的人常常会反驳那些拥有良好公共交通系统的城市模式，理由是这些系统在他们所在的城市可能行不通。其中一种反对意见是气候问题。有些人认为，由于天气太热或太冷，他们的城市无法更充分地利用公共交通。纽曼对此表示反对，指出公共交通在多伦多和新加坡都取得了成功，事实上，他已对汽车使用情况与气候条件的关系进行了研究，发现二者“毫无关联”。

When it comes to other physical features, road lobbies are on stronger ground. For example,Newman accepts it would be hard for a city as hilly as Auckland to develop a really good rail network. However, he points out that both Hong Kong and Zürich have managed to make a success of their rail systems, heavy and light respectively, though there are few cities in the world as hilly.

谈到其他物理条件时，道路优势更为明显。例如，纽曼承认像奥克兰这样多山的城市要建设出真正完善的铁路网络会比较困难。但他指出，香港和苏黎世都成功地发展出了各自的铁路系统，分别以重载和轻轨为主，尽管世界上少有城市像它们一样多山。

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AIn fact, Newman believes the main reason for adopting one sort of transport over another is politics: 'The more democratic the process, the more public transport is favored.' He considers Portland, Oregon, a perfect example of this. Some years ago, federal money was granted to build a new road. However, local pressure groups forced a referendum over whether to spend the money on light rail instead. The rail proposal won and the railway worked spectacularly well. In the years that have followed, more and more rail systems have been put in, dramatically changing the nature of the city. Newman notes that Portland has about the same population as Perth and had a similar population density at the time.

[p:a]事实上，纽曼认为选择一种交通方式而非另一种的主要原因在于政治：“过程越民主，公共交通就越受欢迎。”他认为俄勒冈州波特兰市正是这一理念的完美例证。几年前，联邦政府拨款修建了一条新公路，但当地环保团体推动了一场公投，决定是否将这笔资金用于建设轻轨系统。最终轻轨方案胜出，该铁路运营表现极为出色。此后数年间，越来越多的轨道交通系统被引入，彻底改变了城市的面貌。纽曼指出，当时波特兰的人口与珀斯大致相当，人口密度也相似。

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BIn the UK, travel times to work had been stable for at least six centuries, with people avoiding situations that required them to spend more than half an hour travelling to work. Trains and cars initially allowed people to live at greater distances without taking longer to reach their destination. However, public infrastructure did not keep pace with urban sprawl, causing massive congestion problems which now make commuting times far higher.

[p:b]在英国，通勤时间至少保持稳定了六个世纪，人们避免在上班途中花费超过半小时的情况。最初，火车和汽车让人们可以在更远的地方生活，而无需花更长时间到达目的地。然而，公共基础设施未能跟上城市扩张的步伐，导致严重的交通拥堵问题，如今通勤时间大幅增加。

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CThere is a widespread belief that increasing wealth encourages people to live farther out where cars are the only viable transport. The example of European cities refutes that. They are often wealthier than their American counterparts but have not generated the same level of car use. In Stockholm, car use has actually fallen in recent years as the city has become larger and wealthier. A new study makes this point even more starkly. Developing cities in Asia, such as Jakarta and Bangkok, make more use of the car than wealthy Asian cities such as Tokyo and Singapore. In cities that developed later, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank discouraged the building of public transport and people have been forced to rely on cars -creating the massive traffic jams that characterize those cities.

[p:c]普遍认为，财富增加会促使人们居住在更远的地区，而汽车是唯一可行的交通工具。但欧洲城市的例子恰恰证明了这一点并不成立。它们往往比美国城市更富裕，却并未产生同等程度的汽车使用。近年来，随着斯德哥尔摩不断扩张和富裕，其汽车使用量反而有所下降。一项新研究进一步凸显了这一现象：亚洲一些发展中的城市，如雅加达和曼谷，汽车使用率高于东京、新加坡等富裕的亚洲城市。而在较晚开发的城市中，世界银行和亚洲开发银行曾抑制公共交通建设，迫使人们依赖汽车，从而导致这些城市出现严重的交通拥堵问题。

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DNewman believes one of the best studies on how cities built for cars might be converted to rail use is The Urban Village report, which used Melbourne as an example. It found that pushing everyone into the city centre was not the best approach. Instead, the proposal advocated the creation of urban villages at hundreds of sites, mostly around railway stations.

[p:d]纽曼认为，关于如何将为汽车设计的城市改造为铁路用途的最佳研究之一是《城市村落报告》，该报告以墨尔本为例。它发现，将所有人集中到市中心并非最佳方案。相反，该提案主张在数百个地点，尤其是火车站周边，建立城市村落。

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EIt was once assumed that improvements in telecommunications would lead to more dispersal in the population as people were no longer forced into cities. However, the ISTP team's research demonstrates that the population and job density of cities rose or remained constant in the 1980s after decades of decline. The explanation for this seems to be that it is valuable to place people working in related fields together. 'The new world will largely depend on human creativity, and creativity flourishes where people come together face-to-face.'

[p:e]过去人们曾认为，随着电信技术的进步，人们不再被迫聚集在城市，人口分布将更加分散。然而，ISTP团队的研究表明，在经历了数十年的下降之后，20世纪80年代城市的人口和就业密度反而上升或保持稳定。这种变化的原因似乎在于，将从事相关领域工作的人集中在一起具有重要价值。“新世界将主要依赖人类的创造力，而创造力正是在人们面对面交流时得以蓬勃发展的。”