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Why Americans Would Rather Drive
1 My daily commute to and from work generally takes about 25 minutes. Traffic and weather sometimes make it last 45 minutes or more. But if I’ve got a good song to listen to, a long commute doesn’t upset me. In fact, I don’t mind my lonely drive at all — I rather like it. 2 And I’m not the only one.
3 In a recent survey of drivers in the U.S., 45 percent agreed that driving was their time to think and enjoy being alone. Only 30 percent disagreed; the rest were neutral. This was an issue with no gender gap: there were as many women as men who said they liked their drive time. Nor was it an issue of age: only among people older than 55 was the number who didn’t enjoy driving greater than the number who did.
4 “The car offers a rare space over which the drivers have total control,” writes Alan Smith in the survey. “Here they can breathe in the middle of the breathless pace of
work
and
home,
phones,
and
the
Internet.” Smith also uses evidence collected by other scholars to confirm that drivers are far less negative about the time they spend in the car than experts have previously believed.
5 But experts hardly agree that Americans generally like to drive themselves to work.For decades we have been urged to get out of our cars and into mass transit. We’ve been told that cars are bad for the environment and bad for communities. We’ve been hit with heavy gas taxes and we hear regular demands that they be made even heavier.
6 Nevertheless, we drive. Only 5 percent of commuters take mass transit to work — and the number has been dropping. While the use of cars has increased more than 85 percent since 1970, the use of mass transit — buses, subways, trolleys, commuter trains — has dropped by 3 percent. Today mass transit represents barely 1 percent of the nation’s surface passenger travel.
7 Almost without exception, every time a city builds or expands a subway system, the percentage of commuters using public transit decreases. At a cost of more than $10 billion, Washington D.C. built a large subway network in the 1970s and 1980s. It now carries a smaller proportion of the region’s commuters than the old bus and trolley system did 30 years ago.
8 It is not that Americans wouldn’t listen to their experts, but it is reasonable to prefer private cars to public trains and buses. Cars and highways are available 24 hours a day. They go almost everywhere. They sharply reduce travel time — in America, the average mass transit commute takes 42 minutes while the average commuter driving to work makes it in only 20. And without question, cars and highways are safer: death rates are much lower for cars and highways — especially interstate highways — than for most forms of mass transit.
9 It isn’t a “love affair” with cars that keeps Americans behind the wheel. It is the freedom, flexibility, and efficiency that automobiles provide. Nor is this an American phenomenon. Anywhere people have the choice, they choose to drive.In Europe, automobile use has risen steadily for decades. Since 1989, in what was East Germany, the number of people using mass transit has been reduced by 50 percent; the number using cars now equals that in the former West Germany.
10 People who dislike cars need to face the reality: Americans would rather drive. Subways and commuter trains, no matter how much is spent on them, will account for only a small proportion of commuter trips. We have far more mass transit than we need, but not nearly enough highway lanes. So it is high time to start spending the money where it is most needed. ? 我每天上下班花在路上的时间大约为25分钟，有时由于交通和天气的原因，要花45分钟甚至更长的时间。但如果有一首好歌听着，在路上待久一点也并不让我感到心烦。事实上，我一点都不反感独自驾车，我很喜欢这样呢。 ? 2 而且，喜欢驾车上下班的并非我一人。
? 3 最近对美国驾车族的调查发现，45%的人认为驾车是他们进行思考和享受独处的时间。只有30%的人不同意此看法，其余的人对此不置可否。在这个问题上没有性别差异：在喜欢开车时光的人中，男女各半；也没有年龄差异，只有在年龄超过55岁的人群中，不喜欢独自开车的人数超过了喜欢的人数。 ? 4 在调查报告中，艾伦?史密斯写道：“车给驾车人提供了一个可以完全由他们操纵的难得空间。他们在工作、家庭、电话、互联网的快节奏生活中喘不过气来，而在这个空间里，他们可以歇口气。”史密斯还使用了其他学者收集到的证据来证明，开车的人对花在车里的时间远远没有专家们原先认为的那么反感。
? 5 但是专家们还是不承认美国人一般都喜欢开车上班。几十年来，我们一直受到敦促：走出自家的车子，去乘坐公共交通工具。有人一直跟我们说汽车污染环境、危害社区。我们已被征收了高额的汽油税,并且常听见有人要求汽油税收得更重些。
? 6 然而，我们仍然驾车。只有5%的上班族乘坐公共交通工具上下班，而且他们的人数还一直在减少。从1970年到现在，私家车的使用增加了85%，而公共交通工具，如巴士、地铁、电车、通勤列车的使用下降了3%。如今公共交通仅占全国地面客运的1%。
? 7 几乎无一例外，每次一个城市修建或延伸一条地铁线，使用公共交通上下班的人数比重就会随之下降。在20世纪七八十年代，华盛顿特区耗资一百多亿美元，建造了一个庞大的地铁系统。但它现在运载的本地上班族的比例比30年前老式巴士和电车运载的还要少。
? 8 这并非美国人不愿听专家们的建议，而是因为选择自驾车代替乘坐火车和公共汽车确实情有可原。汽车和高速公路一天24小时都可使用，而且四通八达,可以去任何地方。出行的时间也大大减少 —— 在美国，利用公共交通工具上下班的时间平均为42分钟，而自己开车上下班平均花费时间仅为20分钟。而且毫无疑问，自驾车和高速公路也更安全：开车和在高速公路上的事故死亡率远远低于公共交通，尤其是在州际公路上。
? 9 并不是对汽车的“爱恋”使美国人更愿意驾车，而是汽车带来的自由、灵活和高效使他们这么做。而且这并不是一个美国现象。在任何地方，人们只要能选择，就会选择驾车。在欧洲，几十年来汽车的使用一直稳步上升。1989年以来，在原东德地区，使用公共交通工具的人数下降了50%，开车的人数现在已与原西德持平。
? 10 不喜欢汽车的人必须面对这个现实：美国人宁愿开车。无论投多少钱建设地铁和通勤列车，它们都只会占上下班交通的一小部分。我们的公共交通系统远远供大于求，而高速公路车道却不够用。因此是时候开始把钱花在最需要的地方了。