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奥巴马预留80万美元投资高速列车

2009-04-04来源:和谐英语


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All right, all aboard, the bullet train. Environmentalists say high-speed rail system could dramatically cut down on the 800 billion miles a year that Americans fly. cnnMoney.com’s Poppy Harlow has our “Energy Fix” from New York. Poppy, all I care about us is you must gonna have to go through a long security line to get on the train.

Probably not. I prefer trains to planes anyway. So this is the way people in Europe travel. Often you see a lot of bullet trains in Asia and in Europe. There's a movement now to build a network of them here in this country because this stimulus bill sets aside eight billion dollars for investment in high-speed rail to requesting from President Obama himself. He is a big believer in this kind of travel. Take a listen.

"You go to Shanghai China right now, and they’ve got high-speed rail that puts our railroads to shame. I'd like to see high-speed rail where it can be constructed."

Our different regions of this country will be competing for that stimulus money. Take a look at the map. There’re some possible routes. You see really all over except for the middle of the country right there. That's lacking. We should also mention that Las Vegas wants a piece of the proposed money for its bullet train to Anaheim California. Started spreading all that money out, though, T.J., cannot go very far if you chop it up to all those different requests.

Southern California right now probably the furthest along. What you are looking at now is a video of what is planned to be built between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Nine billion dollars has been approved to finance a bullet train that will take two and half hours between the two cities. That is much faster than driving, especially when you consider any traffic involved. But the nine billion dollars in funding, plus California’s slice of that stimulus money, it doesn't come close to the more than 30 billion dollars it's estimated to cost to build that entire corridor and of course, the trains, T.J.. So (it’s) still long ways off.

But that one sounds good, I’ve driven down that I-5 from San Francisco (Bad traffic.) to L.A..

Yeah, not any fun sometimes, sorry. Poppy Harlow, we do appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Vocabulary:

1.       bullet train: A high-speed passenger train

2.       sets aside for: to keep something, especially money, time, or a particular area, for a special purpose

3.       chop up: 切开,分开

4.       corridor: A restricted tract of land for the passage of trains铁路线

5.       I-5: Interstate 5 is the main Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States