Solutions And Findings For The Municipality Traffic Congestion Problem From A Taxation Point View

With the fast development of the national economy and urbanisation, the Chinese municipal transportation system has experienced the unprecedented rapid growth. To improve the traffic condition which deteriorated gradually, each city government has made huge investment in various road & transportation infrastructure projects. However, the progress of these projects can not after all keep up with the growth of the motor vehicles on the roads. The traffic condition starts to worsen after a period of alleviation in most of cities, especially in the major cities. The situation is so serious that it has caused massive loss to the society. What the public administration faces imminently is to find a powerful and effective way to resolve the traffic congestion (bottlenecks) and enhance the efficiency of limited road infrastructure resources.Taking Fuzhou as an example, this paper aims to explore the possible ways in solving the municipality traffic congestion problem and to develop a reform strategy on taxes/charges on road system under the guidance of the public management theory and research technique. The paper draws its reference from various historical researches and studies done on this issue. The paper divides into four parts:The first part explains the traffic congestion situation in Fuzhou and the damages it may have on the society. The section goes on to analyse the limitation and invalidity of the existing government strategy from the economical angle.The second part illustrates the need of partnership between public and private sectors in tacking this issue. The argument is developed based on the view that the road transport system is public property. By applying the political economy principle to the analysis, the section points out that there is no use if the road transport system is purely provided by the market. The government should adopt a policy where both public and private sectors contribute to the road transport system, a so called"user pay system".The third part aims to learn from the overseas experiences in this area by comparing overseas government strategies and policies on charges & taxes on road transport system.The fourth part concludes the need to establish a road taxes and charges system which is in line with the development need of the socialist market economy. The...