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每日跟讀#539: Near Mexico City, Cable Car Lets Commuters Glide Over Traffic

用纜車通勤避開車流! 墨西哥市郊居民笑了

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每日跟讀#539: Near Mexico City, Cable Car Lets Commuters Glide Over Traffic

Coasting above Mexico City’s infernal congestion is normally a prerogative of the well-heeled, who take helicopters or pay to use the upper deck of two-tier highways to avoid the chaos below.

In October, however, thousands of residents of this ragged industrial suburb began getting to work or school in brightly colored pods that glide along the city’s first commuter cable-car route.

從墨西哥市地獄般壅塞交通的上方越過,通常是有錢人的特權,他們乘坐直升機或付費使用雙層高速公路的上層,避開下方的混亂世界。

然而,去年10月,這破敗工業郊區的數千居民,開始可以坐在色彩亮麗的車廂內,沿該市一條通勤纜車線滑動,去上班上學。

The Mexicable, a seven-stop line that runs just over three miles through a furrow of poor hillside neighborhoods, is part of a growing constellation of cable cars around Latin America that links marginalized communities to their cities’ metropolitan hearts.

In Ecatepec, the largest and most dangerous municipality in the 21 million-strong expanse of greater Mexico City, the Mexicable has brought new visitors, shorter commutes, a burst of street art and a new sense of inclusion in city life, residents said.

「墨西哥纜車線」是條有7個站、穿越一片貧窮山坡社區的路線,全長僅略多於三哩,是拉丁美洲日益星羅棋布的纜車線之一,用以銜接邊緣社區與城市的都會心臟。

整個大墨西哥市人口逾2100萬,埃卡堤佩是這廣大區域中最大最危險的市區,居民說,墨西哥纜車線帶來新遊客,縮短通勤時間,街頭藝術蓬勃發展,還予人一種融入城市生活的新歸屬感。

“It’s great,” said Marco Antonio Gonzalez, who used to spend an hour in a cramped bus to get from his home in San Andres de la Canada, the Mexicable’s final stop, to his job at a warehouse in the center of Ecatepec. He now has a smooth, 17-minute cable ride over dun-colored rooftops, half-bald soccer pitches and narrow streets strung with glittery bunting.

The new transport system has made him proud. “People never build something as impressive as this in a neighborhood like ours,” he said.

馬可.安東尼奧.龔薩雷茲說:「這真的很棒。」以往,他必須花1小時擠公車從他在聖安德列斯德拉加拿達的家,也是墨西哥纜車線的終點站,前往埃卡堤佩市中心的一座倉庫工作。現在他可以搭纜車,順暢地花17分鐘,穿越過一個個暗褐色的屋頂、半禿的足球場,以及掛著閃亮彩旗的狹窄街道。

新的運輸系統令他引以為傲。他說:「人們從沒有在我們這樣的社區,建造過這麼令人感動的東西。」

Ecatepec stretches north from the tip of the capital’s subway network into steep hills where square cinder-block houses are stacked like Lego pieces. Many who use the cable car also catch a bus and then a subway to reach jobs — at restaurants, homes, offices or construction sites — in more affluent parts of town.

Nancy Montoya, a housekeeper who lives in Esperanza, near the sixth Mexicable stop, said she saved about two hours per day using the new system — time she spends doing homework with her children or buying groceries.

Over the past 12 years, gondola systems have been built in cities that include Cali and Medellin in Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; La Paz, Bolivia; and Rio de Janeiro. There are plans to build systems in half a dozen other Latin American cities, according to the Gondola Project, which tracks cable car programs worldwide.

埃卡堤佩從首都墨西哥市地鐵網的頂端向北延伸到陡峭的山丘地區,在那裡,正方形的煤渣塊房子如樂高積木般堆疊。許多纜車使用者得再搭一段公車並再換一次地鐵,才能抵達位在墨西哥市較富裕地區的工作地點,如餐館、住家、辦公室或建築工地。

南西.蒙托亞是名管家,家住靠近墨西哥纜車線第六站的艾斯佩蘭沙。她說使用新系統每天約可節省2小時,她拿這些時間陪子女做功課或購買雜貨。

過去12年,建造纜車系統的城市包括哥倫比亞的卡利和美德殷,委內瑞拉首都卡拉卡斯,玻利維亞首都拉巴斯,巴西里約熱內盧。據追縱全球纜車計畫的「纜車計畫」,另有6個拉丁美洲城市欲興建纜車系統。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/309111/web/

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