The Effects Of Urban Transportation Infrastructure Investment On Air Quality

In the 40 years of reform and opening-up process,China enjoyed a fast economic growth through extensive economic development mode.At the same time,it also led to serious air pollution problems,which damage the physical and mental health of residents,and result in significant economic loss.The report of 19th National Congress of CPC classified pollution control as one of the three-battles for building a well-off society in an all-round way.Under this background,it is of great practical significance to study how we can control urban air pollution in China.Besides the natural meteorological causes and resource endowment of "rich coal",air pollution is also related to the traffic emissions.Compared with the rapid growth of car ownership,the construction of urban transportation infrastructure in China is seriously lagging behind,which lead to road congestion and serious air pollution.But the limit of traffic demand is not consistent with the current situation of China’s economic development stage.There is few literature that studyed the impact of transportation infrastructure investment on air pollution from the supply side.What’s worse,they got different views.This research attempts to show whether the promotion in the transportation infrastructures has the potential to improve the air quality.Firstly,we use the theory of resident utility to explore the relationship between the transportation infrastructures investment and the air pollution.Secondly,seasonal and annual panel data of China are used to do empirical analysis.This paper got the following conclusions:(1)The promotion of transportation infrastructure investment has positive effects on air quality improvement in the long-run,and the positive effects is more remarkable than the negative effects in the short-run.(2)Compared to the promotion of road investment,the growth of road area can make the air quality better.(3)In the eastern region,lengthening urban road is more beneficial to the improvement of air quality than widening road,and the extension of road to guide the multi-center city layout is helpful for air pollution control.However,in the middle and western region,widening road is more conducive to improve the air quality.(4)In contrast to the improvement effects of road reconstruction,the substitution effects of rail construction is larger.Local governments should improve the consistency between road investment and the growth rate of motor vehicle ownership,and increase the investment in rail transit.Since these measures can provide more travel options for residents and improve the utility level of residents,which are beneficial to the sustainable development of environment and economy.