NPR News:伦敦开通通宵地铁 打造不夜城刺激午夜经济

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Tottenham Court Road. Change here for the Northern line.
London's Tube, the world's oldest subway system, ran through dawn this morning. That's a first. It's part of a drive to turn Britain's capital into a 24-hour city. NPR's Frank Langfitt was on the inaugural runs early today. He joins us now from London. Good morning, Frank.
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FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: Why did London transport decide to make this change?
LANGFITT: Well, I think what they wanted to do is they really want to turn this place into a 24-hour city. And it's kind of surprising — you think of London, big cosmopolitan town, but the Tube lines tend to shut down between 12:30 and 1:00. And that has people kind of rushing out, often from the pubs. And it's a surprisingly kind of quiet town given its size. They figure — the officials in the London City government, they figure the nighttime economy here's about $23 billion a year, 700,000 jobs.
They think if they extend the hours of the Tube they'll get pubs to stay open later, nightclubs, add a couple of thousand more jobs, another $100 million to the economy. This is what they're hoping to do. The other thing is they've got to compete with other cities in Europe. Places like Berlin and Copenhagen, they already have all-night subways.
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身份不明的女性：托特纳姆法院路站。本站可换乘“北线”地铁。
伦敦地铁是世界上最古老的地铁系统，今天，伦敦地铁开始通宵运行。这是第一趟通宵运行的列车。这一举措的部分目的是将英国首都打造成不夜城。NPR新闻的弗兰克·朗费特今天凌晨乘坐了首趟通宵运行的地铁。他现在将从伦敦和我们连线。早上好，弗兰好。
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弗兰克·朗费特连线：早上好，斯科特。
西蒙：为什么伦敦交通部决定做出改变？
朗费特：我认为他们是想把这座城市打造成不夜城。像伦敦这样的大都市，地铁系统在凌晨12点半到1点之间就结束运行，这其实有点令人吃惊。所以经常会有人从酒吧里冲出来赶地铁。考虑到伦敦这座城市的规模，其安静的程度多少让人有点惊讶。伦敦市政府官员估计伦敦的夜间经济收入约为一年230亿美元，创造了70万个工作岗位。
他们认为，如果延长地铁的运行时长，就可以延长酒吧和夜店的营业时间，增加几千个工作岗位，增加1亿美元的收入。这就是伦敦希望做的事情。另外，他们还要同欧洲其他城市竞争。柏林、哥本哈根等城市已经开通了通宵地铁。

SIMON: What were the crowds like?
LANGFITT: They were pretty good and pretty well-behaved. You had full trains well past 2, and then things seemed to thin out. Most people were thrilled by this because they do feel that the city shuts down early. I was in the city of London — that's, of course, the financial district — and people were just much more relaxed. I was talking to a guy named Pahun Jain. He's an intern at an investment bank. He was having a pint outside a pub. And here's what he had to say.
PAHUN JAIN: If you're hanging out with your friends, you're not checking your phone for your maps or your timings. You can just go home whenever you want. I think that helps a lot. You're not pressed for time or you're not in a hurry.
LANGFITT: Do you sometimes just have to call an evening early because the Tube is going to shut down?
JAIN: A lot of times, yeah. You'd be surprised.
LANGFITT: Another thing is this was just convenience for people who are coming into the city at night or working in the city at night. I was riding this escalator with Leo Facili. He's a nurse here in the city. He'd just come in from Sicily, and he was so happy that he was able to use the Tube.
LEO FACILI: My flight is always in the late night, so normally I reach home at 4 a.m.
LANGFITT: Seriously?
FACILI: Now I can reach home at 2 o' clock, so this is amazing. I'm so happy.
SIMON: As we noted, Frank, the Tube is the definitive transit system in the world. It's the oldest subway system. It's been around since the 1800s. Why has it taken so long to run it through the night?
LANGFITT: (Laughter) That's what people here were asking. There are a few official reasons. One is it does go back — it's really Victorian-era, 1800s. Officials on the Tube and in the government say it requires a lot of overnight maintenance, so it wasn't easy to free up the tracks to do this. The other thing is this was announced three years ago, but there was resistance from the unions, understandably, from their point of view. These are tough overnight shifts that people didn't want to do.
And last night, one of the things that kind of came through was a sense of pride when you were talking to people. It was like, finally, we're doing this. We are this famous city that everybody knows and people love to come and visit, but it almost seemed like they were behind. And people actually talked about being able to compete with New York and catch up and continue kind of pushing the city forward. So they felt that this was long overdue, but they were very happy to see it last night.
SIMON: NPR's Frank Langfitt. Take a nap, man.
LANGFITT: I will. Thanks a lot, man.
西蒙：乘坐地铁的民众怎么样？
朗费特：他们很好，表现得体。因为凌晨两点以后还有地铁运行，所以客流量得到了缓解。大部分人都对通宵地铁的开通感到高兴，因为他们认为伦敦地铁的运行时间结束得太早了。我刚才在伦敦市中心的金融区，人们看上去要轻松多了。我采访了保恩·杰恩。他是一家投资银行的实习生。我采访他时他正在酒吧外面喝酒。下面是他的看法。
保恩·杰恩：如果你和朋友们出去玩，没必要再用手机查地图和时间了。你可以在任何时间回家。我认为这有很大的帮助。不用再担心时间紧迫，也不用再赶时间了。
朗费特：你有没有因为地铁运行时间快结束了，而不是不提前结束晚上的活动？
杰恩：经常会这样。你一定感到很惊讶。
朗费特：另外，通宵地铁对那些晚上抵达伦敦的人和在伦敦上夜班的人来说更为方便。我刚才和里奥·费西里一起坐了电梯。他是伦敦的一名护理人员。他刚从西西里回到伦敦，他对能乘坐伦敦地铁感到非常高兴。
里奥·费西里：我乘坐的航班通常都在深夜，通常我到家时已经凌晨4点了。
朗费特：真的吗？
费西里：现在我凌晨2点就能到家了，这太不可思议了。我非常高兴。
西蒙：弗兰克，刚才我们提到过，伦敦地铁是世界上最好的运输系统。也是世界上最古老的地铁系统。伦敦地铁自19世纪开始运行。为什么伦敦花了这么长时间才开通夜班车？
朗费特：（笑）这也是伦敦民众在问的问题。主要是因为一些官方原因。首先，这要追溯至维多利亚时期，也就是19世纪。地铁官员以及政府官员表示，由于地铁经常需要在夜间进行检修，所以空出轨道运行通宵地铁不太容易办到。另外，伦敦三年前宣布了通宵地铁计划，但是当时该计划遭到了工会的强烈反对，从他们的角度来看是可以理解的。因为人们并不想上这种困难的夜班。
昨晚，在和人们交谈时，我发现他们有一种自豪感。就好像在说，我们终于做到了。伦敦是所有人都知道的著名城市，人们喜欢来伦敦旅行，但是伦敦民众感觉有些落后于人。人们说通宵地铁的开通可以和纽约竞争，可以让伦敦赶上其他城市，并继续推动伦敦不断进步。所以虽然他们认为通宵地铁姗姗来迟，但是他们很高兴昨晚能看到通宵地铁开通。
西蒙：以上是NPR新闻的弗兰克·朗费特带来的报道。小睡一下吧。
朗费特：我会的，非常谢谢你。