CNN新闻英语第 70 课：In a Traffic Jam 堵车！堵车！！

JAMES HATTORI, HOST 詹姆斯·哈托利，主持人
The spectacular vermilion orange span of the Golden Gate Bridge. Hi, everybody, I'm James Hattori. Welcome to NEXT@CNN . this week from San Francisco's world famous landmark, at the mouth of the Golden Gate straits. 这是橙红色金门大桥横跨海上的壮观场面。嗨，大家好，我是詹姆斯·哈托利。欢迎收看《CNN科技新时代》。本周是在旧金山金门海峡入海口、举世闻名的标志性建筑金门大桥向您报道。

Forty-two million vehicles a year cross this bridge. That gives you an idea of the often nightmarish traffic drivers face around here. And, of course, we're not alone. Natalie Pawelski has the numbers on what it costs Americans to cope with rush-hour traffic, in time and money. 金门大桥每年有4200万辆车过往。这让您想起大桥周围司机们因堵车而烦躁不安的面孔。当然，并非只有我们这儿堵车。纳塔莉·帕韦尔斯基手头上有些数据，它们能反映美国人在交通高峰期浪费在堵车上的时间和金钱的状况。

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT 纳塔莉·帕韦尔斯基，CNN环保特派记者
If you think traffic is getting worse in your town, you're probably right.
如果您认为您居住的城市交通状况越来越糟糕，那么您也许是对的。

TIM LOMAX, TEXAS TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE 提姆·洛马克斯，德州运输研究所
There's a combination of factors. It's the amount of people, the amount of roadway that is there. It's sort of a demand/supply relationship. You can think of it that way, and there's a lot more demand than there is supply. 交通恶化的因素是综合性的，它包括人口数量，道路数量，以及供需关系。您可以这么认为，交通需求大于供给。

PAWELSKI 帕韦尔斯基
The annual Urban Mobility Report from the Texas Transportation Institute finds in the average American city people traveled 85 percent more miles by car in the year 2000 than they did in 1982. And rush hour drivers are now wasting an average of 62 hours a year stuck in traffic. 德州运输研究所的城市交通年报上说，美国城镇居民2000年驾车旅行的公里数比1982年多出85%。司机每年在交通高峰期平均要被"堵"上62小时。

Now that's not total travel time, that's just the extra time spent going slow or going nowhere because of traffic congestion. The study says the worst traffic is in Los Angeles where the average rush hour driver loses 136 hours a year, more than three work weeks, to traffic jams. 这还不算汽车正常行使的时间，这只是堵车时汽车缓慢开动或一动不动时所花的额外时间。该研究报告称，交通状况最恶劣的是洛杉矶，司机平均每年在上下班高峰期因堵车要浪费136小时，这相当于3个工作周的时间。

The runners up in the time drained category San Francisco, D.C., Seattle, Houston, San Jose, Dallas, New York, Atlanta and Miami where the average rush hour driver loses an extra 69 hours a year stuck in traffic. 交通耗费时间表上排名依次为旧金山、哥伦比亚特区、西雅图、休斯顿、圣荷西、达拉斯、纽约、亚特兰大、迈阿密，司机平均每年在高峰期浪费69小时。

LOMAX 洛马克斯
Once you get to a big system, it's difficult to maintain the pace of the roadway and transit system development and you wind up falling behind. More congestion is typical in bigger cities. 在一个庞大的交通系统中，要保持道路建设和公交系统发展步调一致相当困难，人们总是被甩在后面。城市越大，拥堵越严重。

PAWELSKI (on camera) 帕韦尔斯基
The report says traffic jams aren't just annoying, they are expensive. For the 75 cities studied, researchers added up all the extra time and fuel wasted because of traffic congestion. The price tag they figure is almost $68 billion a year. 这项报告指出，交通阻塞不仅令人心烦，而且还很费钱。就接受调查的75个城市来说，研究者把所有因交通阻塞而浪费的时间和燃料加到一起，总计价值约有680亿美元。