An Analysis Of Local Governments' Behavior On Controlling Traffic Congestion In Big Cities Of China

Traffic is considered as the arterial system of cities and whether the traffic flows affects directly the sustainable development of the city and people's quality of the life. In many cities of today's China, especially the big ones, traffic congestion has been a restraining factor to inhibit cities' development. To control traffic jam is, in essence, a kind of public goods aiming at reducing public bads. As the supplier of public goods, the local governments' choice of behavior has a direct influence on the effectiveness of traffic control.Since reform and opening up, the implementation of decentralization of government administration and fiscal system in China has, to a large extent, aroused the enthusiasm of local governments to develop economy. However, after the establishment of socialist market economic structure, local governments still put economic development in the first place, frequently ignoring the role of supplying public goods. Seen from the origin, the lagging of local governments'transformation of the functions is influenced by local governments'interest and interest groups. Restricted by above reasons, local governments haven't played a good role of coordinating limited city traffic resources. The strategic decision they have made to control traffic jam often goes against public interest, thus causing more serious traffic problems.Therefore, the key to optimizing the local governments'behavior of traffic management lies in accelerating the transformation of government functions, perfecting local governments' decision mechanism on traffic control and strengthening the coordination capacity among the relative departments.