A Study On The Institution Of Urban Transportation Planning

ABSTRACT:Transportation planning is a useful measure for urban government to allocate the resource of transportation. The object of transportation planning is to achieve the public interest. But some urban governments in China have pursuited their own interests in the process of transportation planning, which go against the will of people and waste public resources. The institution of urban transportation planning in China need be reformed. This study aims to analyze how the institution of urban transportation planning influencing resource allocation effect, then give institutional proposal.The whole process of urban government allocating the public resource will be analyzed. The analytical framework adopted in this paper consists of five steps:(1) characterizing economic environments,(2) specifying behavior assumptions,(3) providing an institution arrangement,(4) choosing the equilibrium, and (5) making evaluations. The effect of resource allocation should achieve the optimal scale of social welfare and reflect general will. The behavior assumption of person is self-interest and limited rationality in the paper. The institutional factors related to urban transportation planning, such as property right, contract, and transaction cost have been analyzed to describe the characteristics of economic environment. Since land property rights belong to the state, government will achieve benefit if the lands have been used for industry, commerce, or even transportation according to the planning. Recently, massive land has been planned as transportation infrastructure, which might not accord to actural demand. Since the local parliaments have not been elected by ctizens directly, the urban government doesn’t regard ctizens’opinion seriously. The urban transportation plannings reflect government’s will, but don’t reflect ctizen’s will. The urban transportation plannings are supervised by provincial or central government, not by ctizens. The costs of decision-making, implementing and supervision in the process of transportation planning are expensive. A model imitating public decision mechanism in nowadays economic environment has been set up. If the different departments of governments take cooperative strategy when they provide public goods, they can achieve the optimal scale of social welfare. The preconditions of the model include collective decision-making, reflection of general will and necessary information of fiscal expenditure and planning. To satisfy these condition, political institution need to be reformed, fiscal and planning system need to be restructured. Another model imitating public decision mechanism in western democratic and constitutional environment has also been set up. From this model, the probably orientation of institution development has been shown.Some proposals related to the institution of urban transportation planning are recommened, such as reforming political constitution, promulgating white paper of transportation policy, controlling the fiscal expenditure, prevention of environment poplution, and adding fiscal constraint to transportation planning. Some proposals on the institution of urban transportation planning are recommened, such as rebuilding the planning organization, reclaiming the planning principles, and adopting new procedure.