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| Terrified passengers trapped in flooded subway cars in Zhengzhou, China. Water cascading down stairways into the London Underground. A woman wading through murky, waist-deep water to reach a New York City subway platform. | 在中国郑州，洪水涌入地铁车厢，被困乘客吓坏了。在伦敦，水顺着楼梯流入地铁。在纽约，一名女子涉水穿过齐腰深的浑浊污水，到达地铁站台。 |
| Subway systems around the world are struggling to adapt to an era of extreme weather brought on by climate change. Their designs, many based on the expectations of another era, are being overwhelmed, and investment in upgrades could be squeezed by a drop in ridership brought on by the pandemic. | 世界各地的地铁系统都在努力适应气候变化带来的极端天气时代。它的设计——许多都是基于另一个时代的需求——如今不堪重负，并且由于疫情导致乘客量下降，升级投资可能会因此受到挤压。 |
| “It’s scary,” said Sarah Kaufman, associate director of the Rudin Center for Transportation at New York University. “The challenge is, how can we get ready for the next storm, which was supposed to be 100 years away,” she said, “but could happen tomorrow?” | “这太可怕了，”纽约大学(New York University)鲁丁交通中心(Rudin Center for Transportation)副主任莎拉·考夫曼(Sarah Kaufman)说。“我们面临的挑战是，如何为下一场风暴做好准备，一场本应在100年后发生的风暴，”她说，“但有可能明天就来了。” |
| Public transportation plays a critical role in reducing travel by car in big cities, thus reining in the emissions from automobiles that contribute to global warming. If commuters become spooked by images of inundated stations and start shunning subways for private cars, transportation experts say it could have major implications for urban air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. | 在减少大城市的汽车出行方面，公共交通发挥着关键作用，有助于控制导致全球变暖的汽车排放。交通专家表示，如果通勤者被车站淹没的画面吓坏，并开始避开地铁改为乘坐私家车，这可能会对城市空气污染和温室气体排放产生重大影响。 |
| Some networks, such as London’s or New York’s, were designed and built starting more than a century ago. While a few, like Tokyo’s, have managed to shore up their flooding defenses, the crisis in China this week shows that even some of the world’s newest systems (Zhengzhou’s system isn’t even a decade old) can also be overwhelmed. | 一些地铁网络是从一个多世纪以前开始设计和建造的，例如伦敦或纽约的地铁。虽然像东京这样的一些城市已经设法加强了防洪能力，但本周中国的危机表明，即使是世界上一些最新的系统（郑州地铁投入运营甚至还不到十年）也可能不堪重负。 |
| Retrofitting subways against flooding is “an enormous undertaking,” said Robert Puentes, chief executive of the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit think tank with a focus on improving transportation policy. “But when you compare it to the cost of doing nothing, it starts to make much more sense,” he said. “The cost of doing nothing is much more expensive.” | 专注于改善交通政策的非营利智库埃诺交通中心(Eno Center for Transportation)首席执行官罗伯特·普恩特斯(Robert Puentes)表示，对地铁进行防洪改造是“一项巨大的工程”。“但是当你将它与什么都不做的代价进行比较时，它开始变得更有意义，”他说。“什么都不做的代价要高得多。” |
| Adie Tomer, a Senior Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution, said subways and rail systems help to fight sprawl and reduce the amount of energy people use. “Subways and fixed rail are part of our climate solution,” he said. | 布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)大都会政策项目(Metropolitan Policy Program)高级研究员阿迪·托默(Adie Tomer)表示，地铁和铁路系统有助于对抗城市摊大饼般的扩张，并减少人们对能源的使用。他说：“地铁和固定铁路是我们气候解决方案的一部分。” |
| The recent flooding is yet another example of the kind of extreme weather that is consistent with changing climate around the world. | 最近的洪水是极端天气的又一个例子，这些极端天气与世界各地气候变化相一致。 |
| Just days before the China subway nightmare, floods in Germany killed some 160 people. Major heat waves have brought misery to Scandinavia, Siberia and Pacific Northwest in the United States. Wildfires in the American West and Canada sent smoke across the continent this past week and triggered health alerts in cities like Toronto, Philadelphia and New York City, giving the sun an eerie reddish tinge. | 就在中国地铁灾难发生前几天，德国发生洪水，造成约160人死亡。斯堪的纳维亚半岛、西伯利亚和美国太平洋西北地区遭受了严重热浪的折磨。上周，美国西部和加拿大森林大火的浓烟蔓延至整个北美大陆，并在多伦多、费城和纽约等城市引发了健康警报，使太阳呈现出一种阴森的红色。 |
| Flash floods have inundated roads and highways in recent weeks, as well. The collapse of a portion of California’s Highway 1 into the Pacific Ocean after heavy rains this year was a reminder of the fragility of the nation’s roads. | 最近几周，山洪爆发淹没了道路和高速公路。今年强降雨过后，加利福尼亚州1号公路的一部分坍塌落入太平洋，让人们意识到美国道路的脆弱。 |
| But more intense flooding poses a particular challenge to aging subway systems in some of the world’s largest cities. | 但是，更严重的洪水给世界上一些最大城市的老化地铁系统带来了特别的挑战。 |
| In New York, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has invested $2.6 billion in resiliency projects since Hurricane Sandy swamped the city’s subway system in 2012, including fortifying 3,500 subway vents, staircases and elevator shafts against flooding. Even on a dry day, a network of pumps pours out about 14 million gallons, mainly groundwater, from the system. Still, flash flooding this month showed that the system remains vulnerable. | 在纽约，自2012年桑迪飓风淹没它的地铁系统以来，大都会交通管理局已投资26亿美元用于防灾项目，包括加固3500个地铁通风口、楼梯和电梯井以防止洪水。即使在干燥的日子里，水泵网络也能从纽约的地铁系统中排出大约1400万加仑的水，主要是地下水。尽管如此，本月的洪水表明该系统仍然脆弱。 |
| “It’s a challenge trying to work within the constraints of a city with aging infrastructure, along with an economy recovering from a pandemic,” said Vincent Lee, associate principal and technical director of water for Arup, an engineering firm that helped upgrade eight subway stations and other facilities in New York after the 2012 storm. | 2012年风暴席卷纽约后，帮助升级八个地铁站和其他设施的工程公司奥雅纳(Arup)的副主管和技术总监文森特·李（Vincent Lee，音）说：“在一个基础设施老化的城市以及经济从疫情复苏的情况下，试图在这些限制下工作是一项挑战。” |
| London’s sprawling Underground faces similar challenges. | 伦敦庞大的地铁系统也面临着类似的挑战。 |
| “A lot of London’s drainage system is from the Victorian Era,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in London. And that has a direct impact on the city’s Underground system. “It’s simply not capable of dealing at the moment with the increase in heavy rainfall that we’re experiencing as a result of climate change.” | “伦敦的很多排水系统都来自维多利亚时代，”伦敦格兰瑟姆气候变化与环境研究所(Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment)政策主管鲍勃·沃德(Bob Ward)说。这对城市的地铁系统有直接影响。“它目前根本无法应对气候变化导致的强降雨增加。” |
| Meanwhile, the crisis in China this week shows that even some of the world’s newest systems can also be overwhelmed. As Robert E. Paaswell, a professor of civil engineering at City College of New York, put it: “Subways are going to flood. They’re going to flood because they are below ground.” | 与此同时，本周中国的雨灾表明，即使是世界上一些最新的系统也可能不堪重负。正如纽约城市学院(City College of New York)土木工程教授罗伯特·E·帕斯韦尔(Robert E. Paaswell)所说：“地铁会被洪水淹没。它们会被洪水淹没，因为它们在地下。” |
| To help understand how underground flooding works, Taisuke Ishigaki, a researcher at the Department of Civil Engineering at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan, built a diorama of a city with a bustling subway system, then unleashed a deluge equivalent to about 11 inches of rain in a single day. | 为了帮助了解地下洪水的工作原理，日本大阪关西大学(Kansai University)土木工程系的研究员石垣泰辅(Taisuke Ishigaki)建造了一个拥有繁忙地铁系统城市的立体模型，然后释放了相当于约11英寸日降雨量的洪水。 |
| Within minutes, floodwaters breached several subway entrances and started to gush down the stairs. Just 15 minutes later, the diorama’s platform was under 8 feet of water — a sequence of events Dr. Ishigaki was horrified to see unfold in real life in Zhengzhou this week. There, floodwaters quickly overwhelmed passengers still standing in subway cars. At least 25 people died in and around the city, including 12 in the subway. | 几分钟之内，洪水冲破了几个地铁入口，并开始顺着楼梯涌入。仅仅15分钟后，立体模型的站台就淹没在八英尺深的水下——这一连串过程本周在郑州的现实重演，令石垣博士感到惊骇不已。在那里，洪水很快漫过了仍然站在地铁车厢里的乘客。市内及周边地区至少有25人死亡，其中12人在地铁死亡。（注：截至23日发稿时，死亡人数已升至33人。） |
| Dr. Ishigaki’s research now informs a flood monitoring system in use by Osaka’s sprawling underground network, where special cameras monitor aboveground flooding during heavy rainfall. Water above a certain danger level activates emergency protocols, where the most vulnerable entrances are sealed off (some can be closed in less than a minute) while passengers are promptly evacuated from the underground via other exits. | 石垣博士的研究现在为大阪庞大的地下网络使用的洪水监测系统提供了参考，该系统在强降雨期间使用特殊摄像机监测地表洪水。超过一定危险水平的话，水会激活紧急程序，其中最难防守的入口被封锁（有些可以在不到一分钟内关闭），而乘客则通过其他出口迅速从地下疏散。 |
| Japan has made other investments in its flooding infrastructure, like cavernous underground cisterns and flood gates at subway entrances. Last year, the private rail operator Tokyu, with Japanese government support, completed a huge cistern to capture and divert up to 4,000 tons of floodwater runoff at Shibuya station in Tokyo, a major hub. | 日本还对防洪基础设施进行了其他投资，例如巨大的地下蓄水池和地铁入口的防洪闸。去年，私营铁路运营商东急(Tokyu)在日本政府的支持下，在主要枢纽东京涩谷站建造了一个巨大的蓄水池，用于收集和分流多达4000吨的洪水。 |
| Still, if there is a major breach of the many rivers that run through Japanese cities, “even these defenses won’t be enough,” Dr. Ishigaki said. | 尽管如此，如果流经日本城市的许多河流出现重大决口，“即使是这些防御也不够，”石垣博士说。 |
| Mass transit advocates in the United States are calling for pandemic relief funds to be put toward public transportation. “The scale of the problems has become bigger than what our cities and states can address,” said Betsy Plum, executive director of the Riders Alliance, an advocacy group for subway and bus riders. | 美国的公共交通倡导者呼吁将疫情救济资金用于公共交通。地铁和公交车乘客权益倡导组织“乘客联盟”(Riders Alliance)的执行董事贝琪·普朗姆(Betsy Plum)说：“问题的规模已经超出了我们的城市和州所能解决的范围。” |
| Some experts suggest another approach. With more extreme flooding down the line, protecting subways all of the time will be impossible, they say. | 一些专家提出了另一种方法。他们说，随着更多极端洪水的到来，永远保护地铁是不可能的。 |
| Instead, investment is needed in buses and bike lanes that can serve as alternative modes of public transportation when subways are flooded. Natural defenses could also provide relief. Rotterdam in the Netherlands has grown plants along its tramways, enabling rainwater to be soaked up by the soil, and reducing heat. | 相反，需要对公共汽车和自行车道进行投资，当地铁被洪水淹没时，它们可以作为替代的公共交通方式。自然防御也可以提供缓解。荷兰鹿特丹沿电车轨道种植绿植，使雨水能够被土壤吸收，并减少热量。 |
| “During the pandemic you saw the way people got around on their bicycles, the most resilient, least disruptive, low cost, low carbon mode of transit,” said Anjali Mahendra, director of research at the World Resources Institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, a Washington-based think tank. “We really need to do much more with connecting parts of cities and neighborhoods with these bicycle corridors that can be used to get around.” | “在疫情期间，你看到人们骑自行车出行，这是最具弹性、破坏性最小、低成本、低碳的交通方式，”位于华盛顿的智囊团世界资源研究所罗斯可持续城市中心(World Resources Institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities)研究主任安贾利·马亨德拉(Anjali Mahendra)说。“我们真的需要做更多的工作，将城市和社区的各个部分与这些可用于出行的自行车走廊连接起来。” |
| Some experts question why public transportation needs to be underground in the first place and say that public transit should reclaim the street. Street-level light rail, bus systems and bicycle lanes aren’t just less exposed to flooding, they are also cheaper to build and easier to access, said Bernardo Baranda Sepúlveda, a Mexico City-based researcher at the Institute for Transport Development, a transportation nonprofit. | 一些专家质疑，为什么公共交通首先要建在地下，并表示公共交通应该重新回归街道。墨西哥城非盈利交通组织交通发展研究所(Institute for Transport Development)研究员贝尔纳多·巴兰达·塞普尔韦达(Bernardo Baranda Sepúlveda)表示，街道轻轨、公交系统和自行车道不仅不易受洪水侵袭，而且建造成本更低，而且更方便前往。 |
| “We have this inertia from the last century to give so much of the available space above ground to cars,” he said. “But one bus lane carries more people than three lanes of cars.” | “我们从上个世纪就有这种惯性，把如此多的地面可用空间给了汽车，”他说。“但一条公交车道的载客量比三条汽车道的要多。” |
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