2025年12月四级第1套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) Five years ago, the city of Queens, New York, announced that it would be putting bike lanes onto a stretch of Skillman Ave — and removing 116 parking spots. Cyclists loved the plan, but local business owners got very angry. Taking out those parking spots, as they argued at protests and in letters to the city council, would ruin stores and restaurants along Skillman. "Parking here is already a nightmare," one shouted at a protest rally.

五年前，纽约市皇后区宣布将在Skillman大道的一段路上设置自行车道——并移除116个停车位。骑行者喜欢这个计划，但当地企业主非常愤怒。正如他们在抗议活动和给市议会的信中所说，移除那些停车位会毁掉Skillman沿线的商店和餐馆。"这里的停车已经是一场噩梦，"一人在抗议集会上喊道。

B) But the bike lanes were a done deal, and soon they were in place. Early this year, Jesse Coburn — an investigative writer with Streetsblog New York — wondered whether those predictions of economic collapse came true. So he asked the city's Department of Finance to give him a few years' worth of sales figures for that stretch of Skillman Ave. How had the businesses on that street fared?

但自行车道已成定局，很快就被实施了。今年早些时候，Streetsblog New York的调查记者Jesse Coburn想知道那些经济崩溃的预测是否成真。于是他要求市财政局提供Skillman大道那几年销售额的数据。那条街上的生意如何？

C) Quite well, it turns out. In the year after the bike lanes arrived, businesses on Skillman saw sales rise by 12 percent, compared to 3 percent for Queens in general. What's more, that section of road saw new businesses open, while Queens overall had a net loss.

结果相当好。自行车道建成后的那一年，Skillman沿线的销售额增长了12%，而皇后区整体增长仅为3%。更重要的是，那段路上有新企业开业，而皇后区整体是净减少。

D) The thing is, the actual merchants along Skillman? They didn't believe it. When Coburn spoke to them and described what he'd found, only a few store owners admitted the lanes had helped. Many still insisted the lanes were killing their part of the city. And emotions ran hot: Someone scattered tacks (大头钉) on the bike lane.

问题是，Skillman沿线的真正商家呢？他们不相信。当Coburn向他们讲述自己的发现时，只有少数店主承认自行车道有所帮助。许多人仍然坚持认为自行车道正在毁掉他们所在的城市区域。情绪非常激烈：有人在自行车道上撒了大头钉。

E) This little story turns out to be a fascinating glimpse at the challenges cities face as they try to update their urban infrastructure — to clean up the air, reduce greenhouse emissions, and speed up travel by making towns more bike-friendly. There's a rising amount of data showing that installing bike lanes and making streets more pedestrian-friendly boosts the economic fortunes of a place. Removing cars and parking spots works. But the folks who run local businesses simply aren't convinced, even when their own street performs. Given that sort of mess, can political fights over bike lanes ever end?

这个小故事揭示了城市在更新基础设施时所面临的挑战——清理空气、减少温室气体排放，通过使城镇更友好于自行车来加速交通。越来越多的数据显示，安装自行车道和使街道更友好于行人能提升一个地方的经济前景。移除汽车和停车位是有效的。但经营当地企业的人就是不相信，即使他们自己的街道表现良好。考虑到这种混乱局面，关于自行车道的政治斗争能结束吗？

F) In 2013, researchers at New York City's Department of Transportation studied seven stretches of road that had installed bike lanes or created pedestrian-friendly areas. The city analyzed the data for businesses along those routes and found that by the third year sales grew faster on five of the streets than in the district overall, on average — up to five times faster, in fact.

2013年，纽约市交通局的研究人员研究了七段安装了自行车道或创建了行人友好区域的道路。该市分析了沿这些路线的企业数据，发现到第三年，五条街道的销售额增长速度平均快于整个区域——实际上，快达五倍。

G) Beyond New York, a survey of research from 23 cities found that bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly design didn't hurt local retail and food stores. ("Fears of disastrous consequences for local businesses are unfounded," the researchers concluded.) More recent work has shown roughly the same.

除了纽约，一项对23个城市研究的调查发现，自行车道和行人友好设计并没有损害当地零售和食品店。"对当地企业灾难性后果的担忧是没有根据的，"研究人员总结道。更近期的工作大致显示了相同的结果。

H) The truth is that in fairly dense areas, bikes are more efficient at moving people around. You might lose one car driver's business — but you gain shoppers who now can arrive more easily on bikes. "Cyclists and pedestrians are consumers too," notes Professor Susan Handy. Plus, streets redesigned for bikes and pedestrians tend to become more pleasant places to hang around, so "in a lot of cases, that's created much nicer environments that are really good for those businesses."

事实是，在相当密集的地区，自行车在运送人方面更高效。你可能会失去一个驾车顾客的生意——但你会获得现在能更轻松骑自行车到达的购物者。"骑行者和行人也是消费者，"Susan Handy教授指出。此外，为自行车和行人重新设计的街道往往成为更宜人的逗留场所，所以"在很多情况下，这创造了更美好的环境，对那些企业非常有利。"

I) Mom-and-pop shops are usually pretty quick at recognizing situations that will help their bottom lines. So why the blind spot here? Perhaps it's that attention focuses on horror stories — and some merchants do get hit when bike lanes come in.

夫妻店通常能很快识别出有助于他们利润的情况。那么为什么这里存在盲点呢？也许是因为注意力集中在恐怖故事上——而且当自行车道建成时，一些商家确实受到了冲击。

J) I spoke to Cindy Hughes, a hairdresser (理发师) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said business fell by at least 40 percent when the city removed nearby parking to put in a bike lane. The majority of her customers drive, with many coming from nearby towns. Only a very few have shifted to cycling, and even those almost certainly won't cycle in Boston's snowy winters. So while Hughes supports bike lanes — "cyclists deserve to be safe" — she sees the parking loss as an existential risk. "Look, 90 percent of my customers drive," she told me. "For our business, the bike lanes are way worse than Covid was."

我采访了马萨诸塞州剑桥市的理发师Cindy Hughes。她说，当城市移除附近停车位以设置自行车道时，生意下降了至少40%。她的大多数顾客开车，许多来自附近城镇。只有极少数人转向骑行，即使那些人也几乎肯定不会在波士顿的雪天骑行。因此，尽管Hughes支持自行车道——"骑行者值得安全"——但她将停车损失视为生存风险。"看，90%的顾客开车，"她告诉我。"对我们企业来说，自行车道比Covid更糟糕。"

K) For others, the pushback is cultural, says Henry Grabar, a writer for the Slate Magazine. Small business owners are frequently drivers who commute from other parts of the city by car, Grabar points out. They're also often longtime locals. "They tend to be people with deep roots in the city, who have hung around since before the neighborhood became what it is today," he adds. Driving around town in a car is so normal to them that cycling seems weird and unusual — despite its boost from Covid, when bike sales exploded by 75 percent.

对其他人来说，抵制是文化性的，Slate Magazine的作家Henry Grabar说。小企业主经常是开车从城市其他部分通勤的驾车者，Grabar指出。他们也往往是长期本地人。"他们往往是根深蒂固的城市居民，自社区变成今天这样之前就在这里活动，"他补充道。开车在城里转悠对他们来说如此正常，以至于骑行显得奇怪和不寻常——尽管Covid期间自行车销售增长了75%。

L) Psychology beats all! Who knew, right? The fierce divide between store owners and bike-lane advocates seems similar to our larger culture wars over climate change. If we've learned anything about culture wars, it's that data isn't much good at changing minds.

心理学战胜一切！谁知道呢，对吧？店主和自行车道倡导者之间的激烈分歧似乎类似于我们更大的关于气候变化的文化战争。如果我们从文化战争中学到了什么，那就是数据在改变观念方面用处不大。

M) When Janette Sadik-Khan was the head of New York City's Transportation Department back in the early 2000s, she oversaw a rollout (推出) of bike lanes — and got angry blowback from residents and business owners who claimed there weren't enough cyclists to justify installing lanes. Now, she notes ironically, the lanes are so full of activity that opponents have turned to claiming the problem is the opposite: There are too many cyclists getting in the way of cars.

当Janette Sadik-Khan在2000年代初担任纽约市交通局局长时，她监督了自行车道的推出——并遭到了居民和企业主的愤怒反对，他们声称没有足够的骑行者来证明安装车道的合理性。现在，她讽刺地指出，车道上活动如此频繁，以至于对手转向声称问题相反：有太多骑行者妨碍汽车。

N) Maybe bike lanes will always be charged with emotion, until enough of the public is finally concerned about climate change — and it seems reckless (鲁莽的) to not have them.

也许自行车道将永远充满情感色彩，直到足够多的公众最终关注气候变化——而没有它们似乎显得鲁莽。

O) Crises, after all, have a way of opening people's eyes to possibilities. During Covid, restaurants and cafes lost so much business that cities nationwide began allowing them to build curbside seating areas where people could sit, safely, in the open air. It greatly reduced parking — but because, well, shop owners didn't see any way around it. Customers loved the outdoor seating so much that cities are making it permanent: A New York City study of several streets closed during Covid found storeowners making more than before, and diners enjoying the outdoor lifestyle. If data won't change minds, customers might.

危机毕竟有让人们看到可能性的方式。在Covid期间，餐馆和咖啡馆损失了如此多的生意，以至于全国城市开始允许他们建造路边座位区，让人们可以在户外安全地坐着。这大大减少了停车位——但因为，嗯，店主们看不到其他办法。顾客们非常喜爱户外座位，以至于城市正在使其永久化：纽约市一项对Covid期间关闭的几条街道的研究发现，店主们赚得比以前更多，食客们享受户外生活方式。如果数据不能改变观念，顾客可能会。