-
Wired Platforms at Last. Oh No, the Boss Is
Calling!
最终的有线平台。噢不，老板正在打电话
Perhaps no space in New York City is
governed by as complex a set of social rules as
the
cramped subway car, that lurching
human Petri dish that has spawned a thousand
sociology
papers. Its nuanced etiquette
is known to generations of New Yorkers: head down,
body
clenched, contact of eyes or limbs
a no-no.
或许在纽约市
没有一个地方是由一套复杂的社会规则管理的，就像拥挤的地铁火车
中，跌跌撞撞的人们
在这一环境产生了千篇社会学论文。低头，身体紧缩，眼神接触或
四肢，这些微妙的标签
为几代纽约人所熟识。
But things are
about to get interesting this week.
但是这个星期，事情就开始变得有趣起来。
Four underground stations in Manhattan
will come alive on Tuesday
with an amenity that
has
long eluded the city’s subterranean realm:
cellphone service, loud and mostly clear. In a
landmark trial,
New York
City Transit
will unveil a fiber-optic
network that could be
expanded to every
underground platform by 2016.
< br>在星期二，曼哈顿岛的四个地铁站将会开始运营，拥有舒适、便利的设施。嘈杂却
清晰的手机服务一直以来困扰着城市的地下世界。在一个地标性的试验中，纽约市运输
局
将推出一个光纤网络，预计在
2016
年可以扩展到每一个地下
地铁站。
The
test
amounts
to
a
vast
social
experiment
for
millions
of
New
Yorkers
accustomed
to
the
subway
as
a
forced
respite
from
the
frenzy
of
modern
life.
The
contemplative commute could yield to
the on-the-go office. Books may be discarded for
text
messages
and
e-mails.
And
a
convenient
excuse
to
ignore
a
call
may
be
rendered
moot.
<
/p>
因为几百万的纽约人习惯了把坐地铁看成被迫的逃离疯狂的现代生活时间，这
次测试总计上百万次社会试验。安安静静的来回往返路程也将变成路上的办公室。
书本可能会因为文字讯息和电子邮件所丢弃
,,
并且用一个
合适的借口不去接电话可
能会变得没有意义。
Most of all, the trial
could lay bare the deep ambivalence of
iPhone
-addicted urbanites
who lament their digital tethers, and
yet guzzle so much smartphone data that the city’s
cell
networks often slow to a crawl.
最重要的是，这个实验可能仅仅定位于对苹果手机上瘾的都市
人的深深矛盾心理
上。他们一方面为数字领域限制而惋惜，然而另一方面消耗了大量的智
能手机数据，这
使得城市的通信网络通常处于缓慢爬行阶段。
For Johnny Rocco, a shoe designer
commuting on the Q train last week, the idea of
cellphones in the subways seemed a
recipe for chaos. “Everyone will be on their
phones on
the platform,” he said sadly,
as he watched a middling guitarist in his
sub
way car serenade
riders
for money. “It’s aggravating enough having to
listen to that.”
约翰尼罗科是鞋子设计
师，上个星期他乘
Q
地铁上班。对他来说，在地铁用手机这
个主意似乎是使混乱发生的原因。当他在他乘坐的地铁上看到一个二流的吉他弹奏者唱
小夜曲问人们要钱时，
他伤心地说到
:
“地铁里的每个人都在使用他们的手机，这足够使
人们不会去聆听那些
音乐。
But asked if he might
take advantage of the new service, Mr. Rocco
smiled and shrugged.
In reality, he
said, he plans to be one of the worst offenders.
但是问到他是否可能利用这项新服务，尼罗科先生笑了笑，耸
了耸肩。他说道，事
实上他准备成为最坏的实行者之一。
“You can’t not look into your phone,”
he said.
他说，你不能不看你的手机。
There are caveats
—
this is, after all, an
effort to bring 1990s-era technology to a transit
system that has long been a citadel
against the advances of the modern world. The
phones are
expected to work only on
platforms, not in tunnels between stops, and only
AT&T and
T-Mobile subscribers will
benefit. (Verizon has yet to agree to the trial.)
这儿有警告，说明。毕竟，这是把
1
9
世纪九十年代的技术引进到运输系统所做的
努力。这个系统长
期以来一直是反对现代世界进步的堡垒。手机仅仅被期望于在地铁站
使用，而不是在站台
之间的隧道中使用，并且只有美国电话电报公司和德国电信公司的
订户会从中受益。（然
而，威瑞森也已经同意这项试验）
Seasoned
subway-goers already know to plan their trips
around those brief, revelatory
moments
when a sliver of reception falls upon the track.
Last week, as a packed Q train
emerged
from a Brooklyn tunnel and began its ascent over
the Manhattan Bridge, a quiet
frenzy
began as phones emerged from pockets and purses,
and fingers flew across miniature
keyboards.
当接收信号
传递到轨道的时候，经验丰富的乘坐地铁的人已经知道围绕那些简明
的、启示性的重要时
刻计划他们的旅行。上个星期，当一列满载的
Q
列车从布鲁克林
隧
道出现并且在曼哈顿大桥行驶而过时，一场安静的风暴随着手机从人们的口袋和钱包出
现，从手指划过微型键盘时开始。