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As the world’s urban population gets bigger, cities are struggling to provid

游客2024-08-07  59
问题     As the world’s urban population gets bigger, cities are struggling to provide the basic services that their residents need. One of the most pressing problems is public transport. Now let’s look at the crisis facing the city of London.
    In no time in history has there been such a mass migration of people from countryside to city as is happening now. By the year 2030, it’s estimated that more than two thirds of the world’s population will be living in cities, twice as many as today. This means that the problems faced by cities today—overcrowding, poor housing, unemployment, poverty, and lack of food and water will be twice as bad in the this century, unless we find solutions soon.
    Another crucial issue facing cities today is how to provide good transport links to service the commercial, cultural and leisure needs of their inhabitants. Today, many of the world’s major cities are already struggling to cope with out-of-date transport infrastructures. How they will cope with the additional demands placed on them has not yet been addressed.
    London is a good example of the problems facing many major urban centres. It was the world’s first megacity and the first with a population of a million people. Its expansion was made possible by the invention of the steam engine, which, among other things, powered the world’s first underground railway.
    Today, London has one of the world’s most extensive transport systems. But, because it was the first city to build a railway network, much of the infrastructure—the trains and buses, the tracks and tunnels—is now hopelessly out-of-date, and needs urgent modernization.
    London’s future success depends very much on transport. The city lies at the heart of Britain’s road and rail networks and problems in London can rapidly affect other areas of the country. On an average morning, over ground trains bring passengers to stations on the outskirts of the city, and they then continue their journeys by underground, bus or taxi.
    Over a million people travel into central London every day from outside the city. They, and the people who live in London, want a public transport system that is frequent, safe, reliable, affordable and environmentally friendly. What they often get, however, falls far short of that ideal.
Commuters complain about delays, unreliability, cost and pollution, while businesses worry a-bout the problems their staff have getting to work on time. Companies also face high costs for delivering goods and services in a city where congestion means that cars today travel at the same speed as horse drawn carriages did in the last century.
    Yet car ownership continues to grow. The proportion of London households that own a car grew from just over 10 per cent in the early 1950s to over 60 per cent today. 20 per cent of house-holds now own two or more cars.
    As the city has become increasingly congested and polluted, there has been a growing realization that action is needed. However, precisely what should be done is hotly debated. Some people have called for cleaner fuels and strict controls on exhaust emissions. Others say more effort must be put into persuading people not to use their cars, perhaps by charging people to drive into London. There does seem to be agreement on one thing, though—that until London’s public transport system is improved, people will continue to use their cars.
    This raises the all important questions of where the money is going to come from. Until about 10 years ago, most public transport in Britain was owned and paid for by the government. But in the last decade, most train and bus networks have been privatized.
    The government says that the private sector should take most, but not all, of the responsibility for public transport. In London, the underground railway system known as the "Tube" is likely to be where this policy is first put into practice. The government admits that it cannot afford to modernize the Tube system alone. Instead, it wants to form a partnership with private companies, so that they provide some of the money. [br] How they will cope with the additional demands placed on them has not yet been addressed.
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答案 The government
解析 文中倒数第四段，Until about 10 years ago，most public transport in Brit-sin was owned and paid for by the government，即直到十年前，英国政府还拥有公共交通体系并支付其费用。
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