简介：
China Holiday Travel Puts Spotlight on Transportation
春运交通考验中国空气质量
Lunar New Year means tens of millions of travelers in China, mostly by bus but increasingly by car, which is bad news for air quality.
中国的农历新年意味着上千万旅客的迁徙。这些人多数乘坐长途汽车，不过近年来数量明显上升的私家车排放的尾气，使得空气质量令人堪忧。
撰文/播音 戴维•别洛（David Biello）
翻译 程孙雪子
It’s Lunar New Year, the “year of the horse.”Gongxi Facai！Of course, horse is not how millions of Chinese are currently traveling.
恭喜发财呀！今年是农历的马年，《科学美国人》的戴维•别洛也来给大家秀一句中文。当然，马，早就不是现代中国人的交通工具了。
Within the last five years, China has built a network of high-speed rail that covers most of the main routes between cities. But that’s not how most Chinese people are getting home, it’s too expensive. Cheaper, slower, dirtier trains are more popular, but don’t go everywhere people want to be.
过去的五年,中国建立起了一个覆盖大多数主要城市的高铁网络。然而，价格相对便宜、速度较慢、环境较差的火车，却是更流行的回家方式，但问题是，不是哪里都通火车。
No, buses carry the bulk of the travelers back home and will return them to the cities when the holiday season ends. But buses are not the only vehicle plying the ever more crowded roads. China is now home to 120 million private cars, up from just 15 million at the turn of the century.
长途汽车才是运载大多数旅客返乡的生力军，到假期结束时，公共汽车又会将他们送回城市。但是，公共汽车并不是唯一让街道愈发拥挤的车辆。随着人民逐渐富裕，人们对私家车的热情明显提高了。中国现在拥有1亿2千万辆私家车，而就在不久前的世纪之交，这个数字还只是1500万辆。
That’s bad news for air quality. As one city environmental official told me when I recently visited, no matter how much he curbs pollution from industry, smog continues to suffocate because of more and more cars.
但对空气质量来说，这可不是什么好事。我最近一次去中国时，一位城市环境部门官员告诉我，因为私家车越来越多，无论他怎样对工业污染进行限制，人们还是只能生活在呛人的烟雾中。
Should China eventually approach the number of cars per capita in the U.S, they’d see more than a billion vehicles on their roads. The smog may stop them from seeing much else.
如果未来中国的人均汽车拥有量达到美国人的水平，中国的道路上将会出现超过10亿辆汽车。到时候烟雾飘满天，估计人们也看不清前面的路了。
（题图来源：新华社）
