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2012-03-20

High-speed trains
高铁


Going nowhere fast
无处高速


Even California, America’s last big hope for high-speed trains, is reconsidering
即使是加州――美国高铁最后的救命稻草,也正重新考虑修建事宜。

NOT long ago, Barack Obama was hoping that high-speed trains would provide America with the desired “twofer”. First, building the special tracks and locomotives would put a division or two of America’s army of unemployed back to work. Then, once built, the trains would get people out of cars and planes and to their destinations in a way that would be cleaner and use less foreign oil. But those dreams have mostly died. Republicans have decided that government spending, not outdated infrastructure, is the real bogeyman, and Republican governors in Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio have rejected federal money to begin building.
前不久,奥巴马希望通过高铁的修建给美国带来梦寐以求的两项实惠。第一,高铁轨道的修建及机车的制造将会让美国的无业人员重获工作。并且,一旦完工,人们的出行方式将从汽车和飞机变成高铁,一种更加清洁环保并且可以减少使用国外石油的出行方式。但这些美好的愿望几乎已全部幻灭。共和党人认为拖累美国经济的不是陈旧的基础设施,而是ZF开支。在弗罗里达,威斯康星和俄亥俄州的共和党州长已经拒绝了用联邦州ZF的公债基金建设高铁。


Only in California does the dream live on. As Governor Jerry Brown, aged 73 and a Democrat, likes to remember, another big railway project in the 19th century connected the young state to the rest of America. In the 1960s his father, Pat, served as governor and built ambitious aqueducts and highways. In the 1970s Mr Brown himself became governor for the first time, and had visions of his own grand projects. These, as much as his theological bent and his liking for meditation, earned him the nickname “Governor Moonbeam”.
唯有在加州建造高铁的愿望尚存一丝希望。因为73岁的民主党州长Governor Jerry Brown喜欢回忆19世纪另一项宏伟的铁路工程,该工程使成立不久的加州与美国的其它地区相连通。20世纪60年代,Brown的父亲Pat担任州长时建造了宏伟的水道和高速公路,70年代 Brown首次当选州长,并勾画建造自己宏伟工程的蓝图。以上这些加之他的神学背景及酷爱冥想, 因此人们称之为“月光州长”。

Today Mr Brown still sparkles as he mocks the “dystopian journalists” and “declinists” who obstinately fail to see that California’s population will grow from just under 38m now to about 50m in 2030; and that, unless the state has something like Japan’s bullet trains, Californians will choke in traffic jams or go mad waiting for delayed flights in inadequate airports. Of late, he has compared his state’s planned high-speed train to the Panama and Suez canals. And he has added that if China, Germany, Spain and Japan can build one, there is no earthly reason why California shouldn’t do so too.
现今布朗在嘲讽那些“悲观记者”和“衰退主义者”时依然充满活力这些人固执地拒绝承认加州现今不足3800万的人口在2030年将无法达到5000万;并且,除非加州有像日本的新干线之类的新型出行方式,不然加州人都将身陷交通拥堵或是在机场不足的情况下等晚点的航班等到崩溃。最近,Brown把修建高铁的计划比作同修建巴拿马及苏伊士运河一样重要势在必行。他补充道,如果中国,德国,西班牙和日本都可以建造高铁,那么还有什么理由能阻止加州也来建造高铁呢。

California’s voters used to agree. In a 2008 ballot measure (before Mr Brown became governor for the second time), they approved $9 billion in bonds to fund just such a train. As advertised, it was to connect the two big population centres, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. Speeds were to reach 220mph, giving a travel time of less than three hours; the project was to cost $33 billion and be completed as early as 2020.
加州的选民之前对此表示支持。在2008年的公投中(Brown第二次任州长前),选民同意拿出90亿美元债券基金来建造高铁。如宣传中所描述的那样,该铁路建成后将连接洛杉矶和旧金山湾区这两大人口聚集区。到时列车的行驶速度将达到220英里/小时,两地的旅程时间将不到3小时。这项工程将花费330亿美元并预计最早于2020年完工。

Then the iron law of infrastructure projects asserted itself. According to current estimates, the train would in fact cost three times as much or more, and take 13 years longer to build. Mr Obama still wants to help; he has asked Congress for $35 billion in railway funding over five years, of which $3.5 billion may go to California. But even with the bond funds, those dollops would cover less than 13% of the estimated cost. Republicans are in no mood to allocate more.
之后基建工程的魔咒又开始应验。根据目前的估计,这项工程实际支出费用将是预想的三倍或更多,建成时间也将会延后13年。奥巴马对此仍不放弃并给予一定援助;在过去的五年里他已向国会申请了350亿美元用于铁路建设,其中大约35亿美元用于加州。但即便如此,所有这些费用仍不足预计支出的13%。对此共和党人再无心援助更多。

It gets worse. After the ballot measure, it was decided that construction should begin not in the two population centres but in the vast and flat farmlands of the Central Valley, where building is much easier. This means that funds could run dry before the big cities are even connected to the network. A high-speed train would then run through sparsely populated countryside, with hardly anybody riding it. Some call this a “train to nowhere”, others a white elephant. Using a rather more original metaphor Richard White, a professor of history at Stanford, calls it “a Vietnam of transportation: easy to begin and difficult and expensive to stop.”
更糟糕的是,在投票表决后,ZF决定将在中央大峡谷的耕地上开始兴建,而非原定的两个人口密集区,与之前相比这里幅员辽阔,地势平坦易于施工。这意味着在铁路网与大城市连通前,资金很可能早已用光。那时高铁将穿梭于人迹稀少的乡村地区,当然也基本不会有人乘坐。一些人把它叫做“无所适从的列车”,其它人则说它是华而不实,赘而无用。斯坦福大学历史学教授Richard White用更有创意的比喻其为“越南式交通:开始,容易且简单;停止,昂贵且困难”

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2012-3-20 20:58:17
California is the world's eighth largest economy,  I have nothing to say about high-speed rail, I only hope that the high-speed rail in the United States do not like Chinese rail.
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2012-3-20 21:00:55
听力.doc
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打开文件可以听到听力,由于论坛没有听力播放器,如果想听本文的请下载附件.
考虑到考研阅读也经常考1-2篇经济类文章,所以今后建议发帖者考虑一下对文章进行一定的删减和调整,尽可能满足更多人的需求.
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2012-3-20 23:27:50
绵阳 发表于 2012-3-20 20:58
California is the world's eighth largest economy,  I have nothing to say about high-speed rail, I on ...
I understand why there are so many people hate the high-spped rail, but I also hope that there will be more and more people constructing our nations so that our life can be prosperous.
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2012-3-21 10:15:42
It's difficult for the central government of democratic countries to get support to do something that cost a lot .
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2012-3-21 11:42:12
昨天课上老师提到中国对外出口的两样东西绝对是第一,一样是救灾,一样是高铁。邓爷爷去日本坐上新干线的时候,就看到这种新型交通工具给经济带来的大幅成本削减,于是回国之后开始搞,29年危机时,凯恩斯主义大行其道,罗斯福投基建,然后经济慢慢就通过投资乘数的放大而慢慢恢复,中国07年金融危机时也是4万亿投基建,但是这笔钱非但没有流到基建去,反而促进了房地产产业的新一轮增长;反观美国,11年年底是自07年以来数据最好看的时期,看到了中国的高铁,也觉得美国应当进口或自主研发高铁以适应日益增长的物流需求,这对中国来说本是一笔大出口买卖,结果却被铁道部事件搞到搁浅。美国的经济死不了,毕竟人家只要美元处在较强势地位就可以印钱抵债,而中国如果不思考如何从出口、投资转成内需拉动,那中国这8%可就难咯。
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