VOA慢速英語(yǔ): 世界上交通最擁堵的排名前十位的城市

Top Ten Cities With the World's Worst Traffic

In this Sept. 24, 2010 photo, motorists are stuck in traffic jam during an evening rush hour at the main business district in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

世界上交通最擁堵的排名前十位的城市

When you think about it, life is a series of ongoing, connecting trips.

你好好想一下：生活就是一連串的持續(xù)、相互銜接的旅行。

Many of us start the day by commuting, or traveling, to work. We drop off our children at school. We may visit the doctor or go to the market to buy food. We rushhome to see our families.

我們很多人每天需要轉(zhuǎn)乘交通工具去上班，將孩子放在學(xué)校。我們也許去看醫(yī)生或者去超市買食物。然后匆忙回家看望家人。

Life is more pleasant when these trips are easy and direct. The easier commuting, the higher your quality of life is.

如果這些出行更便捷、直接的話，我們的生活會(huì)更加開心。上下班越便捷，生活品質(zhì)就越高。

Being stuck in traffic is not easy or direct. Traffic delays can be stressful. They bring out the worst in some people. Traffic delays also reduce your quality of life. And some areas are worse than others. Three of the ten worst cities for traffic are in Southeast Asia.

被困在路上就不那么便捷了。交通延誤讓人倍感緊張，甚至交通延誤還給一些人帶來(lái)最壞的事。交通延誤不僅降低了生活品質(zhì)。而且在一些地區(qū)的交通延誤比其它地方更厲害。十分之三的城市交通非常擁堵的城市在東南亞國(guó)家。

People who live in big cities spend a lot of time talking about traffic. Too many people on the roads can be a big problem.

居住在大城市的人們花很多時(shí)間談?wù)摻煌?。道路上很多人車?huì)是個(gè)很大的問題。

Not all traffic is the same. There are some terms you need to know when talking about traffic.

并不是所有的交況都一樣。談?wù)摻煌ǖ臅r(shí)候，你需要知道一些術(shù)語(yǔ)。

One such term is gridlock. Gridlock is when nobody can go anywhere. The roads become one big parking lot.

其中一個(gè)術(shù)語(yǔ)是交通大堵塞，交通大堵塞是任何人都沒辦法去別處。道路成為了一個(gè)大的停車場(chǎng)。

There is also stop-and-start traffic. This is when you move forward a little, but then stop. Move a little. Then stop. Both are equally stressful.

還有時(shí)停時(shí)走、緩緩行駛的交通。這就是走走停停，這樣同樣讓人感覺緊張。

Traffic can be bumper-to-bumper. This means there are so many cars on the road that their bumpers seem to be touching. To idle means the engine of your car is running, but you are not moving ... anywhere.

交通可能是一輛接一輛，這就意味著路上的很多汽車都緊挨著。閑置就是汽車的引擎仍然發(fā)動(dòng)者，但是你就是沒辦法往別的地方移動(dòng)。

Another term to know is rush hour traffic. Rush hour traffic happens at about the same time every day – when people are commuting to and from work.

另外一個(gè)詞匯是交通高峰期，交通高峰期是每天上下班的時(shí)候。

But who in the world has the worst traffic?

但是世界上哪些地方的交通最糟糕呢？

In 2014, the Castrol Magnatec Stop-Start Index examined traffic conditions in 78 cities around the world. Drivers in these areas used TomTom GPS devices. Each device measured the time spent in traffic and the traffic conditions they experienced.

2014年，嘉實(shí)多磁護(hù)的啟停裝置系數(shù)（Castrol Magnatec Stop-Start Index）檢測(cè)了世界上78個(gè)國(guó)家的交通狀況。這些地區(qū)的司機(jī)使用TomTom全球定位系統(tǒng)裝置。每個(gè)裝置都會(huì)測(cè)量汽車經(jīng)過(guò)路段的交通狀況和所花費(fèi)時(shí)間。

Castrol is an oil company based in the United Kingdom. The company says all this stop-start driving and idling hurts your car engine. And to help, it wants to sell you Castrol products.

嘉實(shí)多是英國(guó)的一家石油公司，該公司表示這種走走停停會(huì)損害汽車引擎，為了幫助解決這一問題，需要你購(gòu)買嘉實(shí)多的產(chǎn)品。

The study found an increase in both heavy traffic and stop-and-start driving.

研究發(fā)現(xiàn)在擁擠的交通的走走停停駕駛在不斷增加。

Here are the results.

這里是調(diào)查結(jié)果。

The top 10 cities with the worst traffic are:

交通最擁擠的排名前十位的城市是：

10. Buenos Aires, Argentina

布宜諾斯艾利斯，阿根廷

Guadalajara, Mexico

瓜達(dá)拉哈拉，墨西哥

Bangkok, Thailand

曼谷，泰國(guó)

Rome, Italy

羅馬，意大利

Moscow, Russia

莫斯科，俄羅斯

St. Petersburg, Russia

圣彼得堡，俄羅斯

Surabaya, Indonesia

蘇臘巴亞，印度尼西亞

Mexico City, Mexico

墨西哥城，墨西哥

Istanbul, Turkey

伊斯坦布爾，土耳其

And coming in at number one with the worst traffic on the planet is ...

下面是排名全球交通最擁擠的城市第一位的城市：

Jakarta, Indonesia

雅加達(dá)，印度尼西亞

In China, Shanghai's traffic problems were found to be worse than Beijing's. Drivers in Shanghai spend 33 percent of their time on the road idling. People in Beijing spend 27 percent of their travel time idling, doing nothing but running their engines and wasting fuel.

中國(guó)上海的交通問題比北京的交通更嚴(yán)重。上海的司機(jī)33%的時(shí)間堵在路上。北京人27%的出行時(shí)間堵在路上，他們什么也做不了，只能讓引擎發(fā)動(dòng)著、浪費(fèi)著燃料。

So, what can cities do to reduce traffic problems?

因此，城市應(yīng)該做些什么來(lái)減少交通擁擠問題？

One thing cities can do is to supply more public transportation.

可以做的事是增加公共交通運(yùn)輸工具的供應(yīng)。

Let us now take a closer look at the city with the worst traffic in the world – Jakarta. Jakarta's metropolitan area is home to about 24 million people. But only 13 percent of all trips are on public transportation.

讓我們來(lái)近距離地看看世界上交通最擁堵的城市之一——雅加達(dá)。雅加達(dá)的市區(qū)有大概2400萬(wàn)人口。但是只有13%的出行工具選用公共交通。

Investment in public transport in the Indonesian capital began in 2004. Workers are building the first part of a public transport system, known as the Mass Rapid Transit railway.

印度尼西亞首都的公共交通投資開始于2004年，工人正在建造被稱為捷運(yùn)鐵路的公共交通系統(tǒng)的第一部分工程。

Another thing cities can do to limit traffic is to charge money to drive in certain parts of a city. Next year, Jakarta plans to start charging drivers more to travel on two heavily congested roads.

城市選用的別的方法是減少交通車輛，在城市的一些地方收取更多的駕駛費(fèi)用。來(lái)年，雅加達(dá)計(jì)劃在兩條非常擁堵的路上開始征收更多的費(fèi)用。

Jakartaofficials have also banned motorcycles from the main roads in the city.

雅加達(dá)官員已經(jīng)禁止城市主要交通干道上的摩托車通行。

Until cities with traffic problems find ways to get people from Point A to Point B more efficiently, they can only envy people in Tampere, Finland and Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. The survey found that these two cities have the fastest moving traffic.

只有有交通擁堵問題的城市找到讓人們地高效地從A地到B的解決辦法，否則他們只能羨慕在荷蘭的坦佩雷、芬蘭和鹿特丹地區(qū)的人們。調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)這兩類城市擁有最快捷的車流量。

I'm Anna Matteo.

我是安娜·馬特奧。

Are you living with terrible traffic? How much time does it take you to commute to work? How is your city helping to lessen traffic congestion? And if you are lucky enough to live in a part of world without any traffic, you can brag about it ... in the comments sections.

你居住的城市是否也是交通擁擠？每次上下班你需要花費(fèi)多長(zhǎng)時(shí)間？你所在的城市如何減少交通擁堵？如果你足夠幸運(yùn)居住在一個(gè)沒有任何交通的地方，你可以在評(píng)論部分自夸一下。

This report was based on a story from VOA Correspondent Steve Herman in Bangkok. Anna Matteo wrote it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

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Words in This Story

commute – v. to travel regularly to and from a place and especially between where you live and where you work

rush – v. to move or do something very quickly or in a way that shows you are in a hurry

congested/congestion – adj. when talking about traffic, too many cars on the road

gridlock – n. a situation in which streets are so full that vehicles cannot

parking lot – n. an area outside a building for parking cars, trucks, etc.

bumper-to-bumper – adj. made up of long lines of cars that are very close together

idle – v. of an engine or vehicle : to run without being connected for doing useful work

rush hour – n. a time during the day early in the morning or late in the afternoon when many people are traveling on roads to get to work or to get home from work

envy – v. to feel a desire to have what someone else has ; n. the feeling of wanting to have what someone else has