From the
BBC» Motorists are getting a "raw deal" from the government, which is investing over 10 times more in rail than road travel, according to two campaign groups.
The Taxpayers' Alliance and the Drivers' Alliance say that spending per 1,000 passenger kilometres travelled is ^138.66 for rail and ^11.11 for road. They say drivers pay "huge amounts of tax" and deserve to have road investment prioritised.
But rail group Greengauge21 said funding new roads was "a mug's game".
'Double whammy'
The alliances based their calculation on total spending in 2007/08 of ^8.2bn on rail and ^8.3bn on roads. While those two figures are roughly similar, campaigners say 59 billion passenger kilometres were travelled by rail in that period, compared with 749 billion by road. Overall, they argue motorists paid ^30.3bn in fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty in 2007/08 - ^18.4bn more than was spent on improving the road network and offsetting the cost of road transport pollution combined.
Jennifer Dunn, policy analyst with the Drivers' Alliance and the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Motorists are getting a really raw deal thanks to the government's misguided transport policy. "Drivers suffer a double whammy - they pay huge amounts of tax, and only receive a disproportionately small share of transport spending."
Drivers' Alliance chief executive Peter Roberts said road spending must be prioritised if congestion was to be tackled. "Spending vast sums of drivers' taxes on extravagant rail projects will not address the immediate transport problems we have in the UK▸ ." (.....continues)
