A freeway linking Beijing and Shi Jiazhuang, capital of Beijing's neighboring Hebei Province, keeps cashing in on commuters for seven years after it finished paying off debts in 2000.

"We'd better charge the road toll for another 20 years to cover future expenses of its maintenance," says a cartoon man (L) standing on a bag of coins in front of a toll gate of the Beijing-Shi Jiazhuang Freeway. [Youth Weekend]

Li Shuyuan, a deputy to the municipal people's congress, has wrestled with the local transportation authorities for 15 years by calling up a bill to stop charging vehicles the road toll in each year's local congress session.

Each time, Li's bill falls short of support as a local transportation authority alleges that they still haven't finished paying the cost of building the freeway, with 800 million yuan still outstanding.

After 15 years of failing to change the transportation authority's mind on the tolls, she is now unveiling the truth and taking her cause to the public.

An audit by the municipal auditing bureau in 2005 into the Beijing-Shi Jiazhuang Freeway project initiated upon Li's request raised doubts about the legitimacy of the road toll.

According to the report, the project ran into an 810 million yuan debt to meet its funding requirements. All its debts were settled in 2000, and there was a 585 million yuan income on the freeway's 2004 balance sheet.

However the audit didn't shed new light on Li's bill, which was ejected from the following congress sessions. According to Li, the local transportation authority and district government's interest in the freeway is a prime contributor to the throwing out her bill proposal.

"The road toll collected from the Beijing-Shi Jiazhuang Freeway is not only used to repay the debt, and we must give an overall consideration to its overall arrangement," said the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communication, citing other excuses to justify the road toll in a letter to Li.

"It is a violation of a regulation jointly issued by the Ministry of Communication, Ministry of Finance and National Development and Reform Commission to charge road tolls on a freeway after its debts are cleared," Li explained to Youth Weekend.

"They use this freeway to finance other projects," Li said. "The road toll collected from the Beijing-Shi Jiazhuang Freeway should only be used to repay its loan, and not appropriated for other purposes," she explained, referring to another notice issued by the Beijing Municipal Government.

The freeway, a short cut from Beijing's Fangshan District to the downtown area, took over many Fangshan locals' farmland with relatively low compensation when it was under construction, but now a round-trip to the downtown area costs 20 yuan.

Li said that she would keep on pushing the bill forward to fight for the interest of 800,000 Fangshan locals if she was re-elected their deputy as her five-year term is expiring soon.

According to a 2007 survey by the National Audit Office, there are serious problems with the construction, operation, and management of turnpikes in Beijing, Hebei and other 16 provinces or cities. Some turnpikes have even brought in ten-folded return on their investments.