London's transportation network once set the pace 伦敦交通网

While recentlyrereading the adventures of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, penned byArthur Conan Doyle, it struck me how, long before smartphones and online cabhailing, the industrious elements of London society nonetheless managed to dashabout the city with a speed worthy of the Greek victory goddess Nike.

我最近重读柯南·道尔的《福尔摩斯》，深刻感受到在智能手机和网络约车时代到来以前，英国当年的工业化发展速度飞快。

When Holmes, whocame to define the detective story genre, was hot on the trail of a clue in thelate 1800s and early 1900s, he was known to say "the game is afoot!"before flying into action.

福尔摩斯的故事流行于19世纪末和20世纪初。每次飞奔到案发现场前，福尔摩斯总会说：“事态紧急！”

But how did thecelebrated detective, in the era of horse-drawn carriages and steam engines,ever manage to catch up with his prey in cases that sometimes took him farbeyond the limits of London?

但是在马车和蒸汽火车盛行的年代，大侦探如何准时抵达现场呢？

Simple. He had athis disposal an entire network of telegrams, all-hour cabs, trains, rentalbikes (in one case) and oceangoing vessels. So, of course, did his dastardlyfoes, including the archvillain Professor James Moriarty.

简单。他可以利用电报、出租车、火车、租赁自行车和船。不过，包括詹姆斯·莫里亚蒂教授在内的反派人物也有这些工具。

The thrivingmetropolis of London of the late 1800s, like Beijing today, relied on afar-reaching, intricate transportation web to give its residents, no mattertheir purpose, a means to get from point A to point B as quickly, and with aslittle effort, as possible.

19世纪的伦敦繁荣昌盛，正如现在的北京一样，用盘根错节远程覆盖的运输网络将居民尽快送到目的地。

Many a time, inthe midst of a howling London gale, Holmes would receive a late-night telegramregarding urgent business, delivered by a hearty agent whose work wasunaffected by weather or clock.

不论季节和时间，福尔摩斯多次收到线人在深夜发来的紧急电报。

Holmes would, intypical fashion, call a cab, and not, I assure you, through Didi or Uber. Butwithin a quarter of an hour he'd be speeding headlong to the countryside toassist in a mind-bending murder investigation.

他经常叫辆出租车（肯定不是滴滴和优步），在一刻钟内就飞驰到乡下调查凶杀案去了。

I contrast thisexperience with that of two cities in America with which I am intimatelyfamiliar — Omaha, Nebraska, and San Diego, California.

我设想了一下，如果这种情况发生在我熟悉的两个美国城市——内布拉斯加州的奥马哈和加利佛尼亚州的圣地亚哥会什么样。

Both cities are,like Beijing, geographically sprawling.

这两个城市和北京一样，都是地域辽阔。

But both suffer,and painfully so, from a dearth of the mass transit that allows Beijing to runsmoothly and reliably as clockwork.

但这两个美国城市的交通体系都发展不足，不像北京那样准时可靠。

Buses in these twoUS cities are slow, not well coordinated and infrequent. You could spend anentire day getting from one end of San Diego County to the other by bus. Taxisare expensive, and subways nonexistent. And while the Amtrak rail system canget you to Los Angeles in a snap, San Diego's intracounty travel is foreboding.

奥马哈和圣地亚哥的公交车很慢，衔接不好。从圣地亚哥的这一边到另一边，可能要坐一天的公交车。出租车很贵，地铁更是不存在。虽然洛杉矶有轻轨系统，但圣地亚哥的交通状况很糟糕。

Like San Diego,Omaha — the home of Warren Buffett — is a spread-out city where a car is a mustdue to woeful public transit.

因为公共交通不发达，在这些地域辽阔的地方只能开车。

In London circa1880, the car was not yet an option, so the likes of Sherlock Holmes relied onthe city's well-oiled, massively interconnected transit system.

在1880年的伦敦，小汽车并不普遍，所以福尔摩斯只能依赖成熟的交通系统。

Still, reliabletransportation, though crucial, isn't everything. You may well wonder, as Ihave, whether Sherlock Holmes might have been even more awesome at solvingcases had he been able to use two other tools of today — the internet and thesmartphone.

不过可以信赖的交通网络并非全部。如果大侦探能利用网络和智能手机断案，是不是会更酷呢。

Regarding theinternet, the answer would be a qualified yes, since Holmes was prone tolounging around his home and reading every newspaper he could get his hands on,in an effort to widen his knowledge base. However, he also disdained uselessinformation, in which the internet abounds, because he felt such things as thefact that the planets revolve around the sun wasted valuable cranial space.

大侦探肯定会利用互联网，因为他希望在屋子里溜达，读遍手头所有报纸来扩充知识面。但他也会鄙视无用信息。

As for thesmartphone, I hardly think he'd be a better detective if he'd had one. Holmes,after all, relied almost entirely on his well-sharpened powers of observationand deduction, which gave him the ability, at one glimpse of a passingstranger, to practically tell that person's life story.

不过我怀疑智能手机并不会让他成为更好的侦探。毕竟福尔摩斯几乎完全依赖于自己观察力和推理能力。他只需要看一眼路人，就能知道人家的生平。

Staring at asmartphone would not only have weakened his eagle eye, but also would havedistracted him from a crucial, and very immediate, engagement with everythingand everyone around him.

盯着智能手机看不仅会损耗他的视力，还会分散他对周围的事物注意力。

So while Holmes nodoubt would have fared even better if he'd had the Chinese connections affordedby Beijing's rapid and reliable transit, it's not likely he'd have had muchneed for today's gizmos and gadgetry.

毫无疑问，如果大侦探能体验到北京这种快捷可靠的交通系统，他肯定会更厉害，不过他可能不需要当代社会的一些发明。

Rather, thequick-witted sleuth relied on something so often absent today: goodold-fashioned brainpower.

相反，他依赖的是现在很容易被忽略的东西——脑力。