????自從汽車進入美國大眾市場以來，城市開發商們在規劃城市布局時就會優先考慮車流。

????不過，在加州拉古納尼古爾舉行的《財富》雜志（Fortune）“頭腦風暴綠色大會”（Brainstorm Green conference）上，一群討論小組成員提出，城市建設支持高速公路并不一定能為居民帶來最好的生活品質。

????城市設計與建筑公司卡爾索普聯合公司（Calthorpe Associates）的合伙人彼得?卡爾索普稱：“高速公路城市的時代已經過去了，我們已經無法繼續承擔這個代價，而且它也并不理想。”他還說，隨著全球越來越多地區邁入城市化階段——據他說，到2025年發展中國家將有35億人居住在城市中——城市居民將會需要充滿樂趣的宜居環境。他說，未來的城市設計可以圍繞這些展開，不必總想著汽車。

????西門子公司（Siemens）總裁兼首席執行官埃里克?斯皮格爾表示，市長們已經在考慮降低交通擁堵的問題了。他說，從積極的方面說，減少擁堵并不需要突破性的技術，“人們總是在說創新，但實際上我們已經有很多技術可以減少路上的汽車” 。

????很多交通領域的創新來自發展中國家。比如，西方國家正在研究拉丁美洲目前已經投入使用的快速公交系統。

????小組成員杰?卡爾森是C40城市氣候領導集團（C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group）的首席執行官。他特別提到了里約熱內盧市長派希近期推出的一個項目。目前，這位市長正趕在2016年奧運會之前抓緊推行快速公交系統，以滿足該市的交通需求。快速公交系統（BRT）避免了現行系統的一些弊端。采用BRT后，乘客在上車前就買好了票，不用浪費時間在站臺等待乘客上車，最終也降低了整個系統的運營成本。為了保證這個系統的順暢運行，城市管理者們還必須對那些侵占公交車專用道路的汽車予以嚴懲。

????不過，卡爾森表示，盡管能大幅減少碳排放，但派希并沒有把自己的這番努力大吹大擂成什么意義重大的綠色行動。他倒是強調了這樣一個事實，即更好的公交系統能從根本上改善居民的生活質量。在某種程度上，布局合理的交通系統能改善城市生活品質，因為它能把交通車輛對城市生活的總體影響降到最小。這類辦法頗具諷刺意味的一點在于——最好的交通系統實際上反而能大幅減少往來穿梭、運送乘客的交通工具。

????卡爾索普稱：“實際上是我提出了所謂的‘公交導向的發展’這個說法，我也很愿意推廣它。解決目前問題的答案更多和步行及騎車有關——也就是多關注鞋子，而不是輪胎。”

????或至少不應該是汽車輪胎。這是個頗有意思的想法——城市的未來發展藍圖中汽車將不再是那么突兀的存在了。希望汽車業界的領袖們也能開始正視這種想法【當天晚些時候，通用汽車（General Motors）的首席執行官丹?阿克森也參加了我們的頭腦風暴綠色大會】。如果我們想象未來的城市時，首先闖入腦海的不再是汽車，汽車廠商們應該怎么辦？（財富中文網）

????譯者：清遠

????Ever since cars hit the mass market in the U.S., urban developers have prioritized the flow of automobiles as they plan cities.

????But building cities to support highway infrastructure does not necessarily provide the best quality of life for residents, according to a group of panelists at Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

????"The age of the highway city is over, we can't afford it, and it's not desirable," says Peter Calthorpe, a principle at Calthorpe Associates, an urban design and architecture firm. Calthorpe argues that as more of the world moves into urban environments -- he says there will be 3.5 billion people living in developing world cities by 2025 -- they will want fun, livable urban places. Cities can be all those things, he says, without being designed with cars in mind.

????City mayors are already concerned about reducing traffic congestion, says Eric Spiegel, the president and CEO of Siemens (SI). On the upside, reducing traffic will not require a technological breakthrough, he says. "People talk about new innovations, but we already have a lot of the technology to get cars off the road."

????Many transit innovations are coming from the developing world. For example, Western nations are currently studying bus rapid transit models already in place in Latin America.

????Panelist Jay Carson, chief executive of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, cited a recent project by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, who is implementing bus rapid transit to help cope with the city's transportation needs leading up to the 2016 Olympics. Bus rapid transit (BRT) dodges some of the pitfalls of the current systems. Using BRT, people pay for their tickets before the ride, saving time from idling at stops while passengers board and ultimately reducing the system's costs. For the system to work smoothly, leaders in cities must also work to strictly enforce penalties for cars that camp out in bus lanes.

????Though the carbon savings are significant, Paes is not billing his efforts as a big green initiative, Carson says. Instead, he's capitalizing on the fact that better public transit organically improves the quality of life for residents. In part, well-mapped transit improves quality of life in cities because it minimizes the overall impact of transit vehicles. That's the irony of this kind of approach -- the best transit systems actually cut down on the amount of machines shuttling people back and forth.

????"I actually coined the phrase transit-oriented development, and I'd like to shed it," Calthorpe said. "The answer has more to do with walking and biking -- shoes, not tires."

????Or at least, not car tires. It's an interesting thought -- that cars will be a much less obtrusive feature of the cities of the future. Hopefully, it's a point that leaders at car companies will address. (General Motors (GM) CEO Dan Akerson is joining us at Brainstorm Green later today.) How will automakers adjust when cars don't come first in how we think about cities?