介绍:
Transport infrastructure 运输基础设施
Life in the slow lane
羊场小道上的生活
The government trumpets its ambitions for roads, railways and airports. In fact, infrastructure is getting worse
政府吹嘘他们有关公路和铁路以及航空运输的野心，事实上，（英国的）基础设施正在沦落
Mar 5th 2016 | MANCHESTER
1 lane |leɪn|（尤指乡间的）小径，小路 2 trumpet |ˈtrʌmpɪt| 宣扬；鼓吹；吹嘘
IF YOU want to get rich, goes a Chinese saying, first build a road. George Osborne, Britain’s chancellor, seems to agree. He seldom misses a chance to put on a hard hat and proclaim the virtues of more roads and railways. His idea of a “Northern Powerhouse” would boost the north of England with a big new transport network that better connects the region. Certainly, if people are not stuck in traffic jams or can work in peace on a train they can get more done, leading to higher productivity and increased wages.
1 chancellor ['tʃɑ:nsələ(r)] (德国或奥地利的)总理, (英国的)财政大臣, (英国大学的)名誉校长, (美国某些大学的)校长 2 hard hat 安全帽（建筑工人等戴）3 proclaim 宣布；声明；公布 4 Powerhouse 权势集团；强国
5 virtues *[不可数名词](formal) behaviour or attitudes that show high moral standards 高尚的道德；正直的品性；德行; * [可数名词] a particular good quality or habit 美德；优秀品质；良好习惯.
Yet for all the rhetoric, in recent years British infrastructure has been deteriorating. Roads are more clogged: the percentage of journeys on main routes that are classed as “on time” has fallen by six percentage points since 2010. Trains are getting more crowded, too: a quarter of trains arriving in London in rush hour are overcrowded, up from a fifth in 2010. Commuters are putting up with creaky carriages: in 2005-15 the average age of the rolling stock rose from 15 to 20 years. The number of local buses has fallen by 2.5% since 2010, even though the population has grown by 3%.
The World Economic Forum ranks the quality of Britain’s overall infrastructure 24th in the world, down from 19th in 2006, and behind Iceland and America (which is 13th). It is unlikely that things will improve soon. When the coalition government came to power in 2010, Britain was already one of the lowest spenders on infrastructure in Europe. But as Mr Osborne tries to balance the books, public-sector investment is projected to fall from 3.2% of GDP in 2010 to just 1.4% in 2020.
1 rhetoric [ˈretərɪk] 华而不实的言语；花言巧语 2 deteriorate [dɪˈtɪəriəreɪt] 变坏；恶化；退化 3 clog [klɒg] （使）阻塞，堵塞 4 commuter |kəˈmju:tə(r)| (经很远的路程)上下班往返的人;通勤 5 creaky |ˈkri:ki| 嘎吱作响的
6 carriage（火车的）客车厢 7 class 动词 归类 8 put up with sb/sth 忍受 9 rolling stock: the engines, trains, etc. that are used on a railway/railroad （铁路上运行的）全部车辆（包括机车、车厢等）
10 project 动词 规划；计划；拟订方案
注释：2010年大选的时候，保守党并不占绝对优势，保守党争取了民主自由党的支持才成为执政党的，所以保守党领袖卡梅伦和自由民主党领袖克莱格联姻执政，卡梅伦为首相，克莱格为副首相。
A small infrastructure budget is not necessarily a bad thing, if the money is used wisely. This often means spending on unsexy things—improving traffic lights and so forth—rather than big, expensive undertakings. In 2006 Sir Rod Eddington, an Australian businessman, published a government-backed review of Britain’s infrastructure provision, warning against grands projets for having cost-benefit ratios that are often worse than otherless-exciting transport projects. Politicians like to be photographed at big digs, but the returns from such projects are hard to predict.
1 not necessarily used to say that sth is possibly true but not definitely or always true 不一定；未必， 2 and so forth | and so on 等等，3 undertaking（重大或艰巨的）任务，项目，事业；企业
4 provision （法律文件的）规定，条款 5 grand adj 宏大的，宏伟的; （最）重要的; 豪华的; n. 一千美元; 大钢琴; 6 dig 考古发掘
Sometimes there is no option but to build big. On many London Underground lines—which already run as many as 30 trains an hour—it is hard to make incremental improvements; the only sensible way to create new capacity is to build a new line, as the government is doing now with Crossrail, an east-to-west London link. Still, it has mostly ignored the recommendations of the Eddington review, says John Van Reenen of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, instead focusing its energy on larger, shinier projects.
1 incremental 增加的;递增的 2sensible 明智的；理智的；合理的；切合实际的
注释：伦敦目前正在进行的一项耗资280亿美元的铁路项目――Crossrail工程竣工后，会使该市的公共交通系统得到很大改善。 Crossrail铁路将把希思罗机场与伦敦东部和中西部地区连接在一起，在60分钟内运送150万名乘客。这条铁路预计将于2017年竣工，它会并入伦敦现有铁路网，其中包括伦敦地铁。
The addition of a third runway at Heathrow airport, for example, would cost over £20 billion ($28 billion). Transport for the North, the infrastructure arm of the powerhouse idea, envisages building an 18-mile road tunnel, perhaps Europe’s longest, under the Pennine hills, and constructing other expensive new highways. The tunnel alone could cost up to £6 billion. Meanwhile, £1.5 billion is likely to be spent improving a few miles of road between Cambridge and Huntingdon. Government figures suggest that since 2011 the expected cost of the average public infrastructure project has roughly doubled.
As a result less money is available for smaller upgrades. Funding for local roads has been cut by 20% in real terms since 2010. Analysis by the RAC Foundation, an independent think-tank, found that the number of potholes being filled in per year has increased fourfold since 2005,suggesting that costly, long-term repair is being sacrificed in favour of patching up. Government support for local bus services is down by 20% in five years.
1 envisage |ɪnˈvɪzɪdʒ| 想象；设想；展望 2 think-tank (尤指政府的)智囊团，智库 3 pothole 路面坑洼，路面坑洞 4 pennine ['penaɪn] 奔宁山5 in real terms 实际上，实际中的 6 RAC： Royal Automobile Club . The RAC is a British organization which provides services for car owners. （英国）皇家汽车俱乐部 修理；7 patching up（尤指）临时修补
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