|
2#

楼主 |
发表于 2008-9-13 11:54:20
|
只看该作者
But the new lines have done precious little to ease the problem. Buses, metro and trains are all run by different bodies, which have never learnt to co-ordinate their schedules. Passengers typically have to change several times to reach their destination. In an agreement signed in 2007 by Ken Livingstone, then London’s mayor, some of his officials began to advise Mr Chávez’s government on urban transport in return for fuel subsidies from Venezuela for London’s buses. This scheme was cancelled by London’s new Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, but Mr Livingstone last month agreed to work for Mr Chávez as a consultant.
Congestion is a drag on the economy. According to one economist, cutting 30 minutes from average journey times would save up to $3 billion a year. But neither the government nor the chavista mayor of metropolitan Caracas has come up with a plan to tackle congestion. Last year, the opposition mayors of two Caracas districts banned car owners from using their cars one day a week. Traffic eased somewhat, and the ban proved popular, if controversial. But then the courts ruled it unconstitutional. And Venezuela’s polarised politics has made co-ordinated action impossible.
Mr Chávez’s latest idea is to add an upper deck to the city’s motorways (as Andrés Manuel López Obrador, another left-winger, did when mayor of Mexico City). Experts from Shandong, a province in the north-east of China, were asked to produce a feasibility study, and the government now proposes to start work. But without other measures, an extra motorway deck will merely place yet more strain on already saturated access roads. According to the Venezuelan Society of Transport and Road Engineers, the metropolitan area urgently needs at least 100km of new roads, including the completion of a ring-road—first mooted in the 1970s.
Reversing three decades of neglect will take years, as well as political will. Meanwhile, some Venezuelans try to adapt. “I waste six hours every day in traffic jams,” says Dalila Solórzano, who commutes from Guatire, to the east of Caracas. “I try to make use of the time by listening to recorded English classes.” She seems bound to become fluent. |
|