In recent years,with the increasingly serious traffic problems in large cities of China,transformation to polycentric urban spatial struc-ture has been considered as an important initiative to improve the urban traffic performance.This study examines the traffic performance of the polycentric spatial structure of Harbin,and analyzes the factors influencing the traffic performance of the structure using the location reselection hypothesis theory.The results show that the polycentric spatial structure does not significantly improve Harbin's traffic performance,and only the centers in peripheral areas indicate advantages in commuting speed and distance,to which the main reason is that the social and spatial factors re-duce the importance of commuting costs,making long-distance commuting economically rational and hindering possible location reselection.It is an effective direction for the improvement of the traffic performance of polycentric spatial structure by facing up to the rationality of long-distance commuting and transportation demand,improving the location equilibrium of residential and employment resources,and constructing high-grade centers in peripheral areas in appropriate locations and with comprehensive functions.