Rail networks in most countries have been starved of funding while motorways lengthen, study shows

There’s a bit of good news in here:

In the four years that followed (2018-21), the average gap in investment in rail and road decreased from 66% to 34%. During that time, seven countries invested more in rail than roads – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the UK – while the rest spent more on roads than rail.

But ideally we need a Wales style road building freeze across Europe. We have enough roads to get everywhere, it’s purely building for capacity now and we should be shifting that capacity to rail.

      • elouboub
        4•1 year ago

        If we keep voting for corrupt, money- and power-hungry politicians, then yes, they will only serve capital. Garbage in, garbage out.

        Luckily, it’s not as bad as the rest of world, but nothing’s perfect.

      • @[email protected]
        2•1 year ago

        Assholes never miss an opportunity to vote. Failure to vote means willingly allowing assholes to win elections. Failure to vote is equivalent to saying “this is all fine and I don’t mind whichever way things turn out, better, worse, worse even, or worst”.

      • @ResethelEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        Amen ! I don’t understand how most people still believe that voting will make things better, especially voting for right-wing parties

      • elouboub
        6•1 year ago

        French government: centre right (or quite right depending on which foot they step out of bed with)

        German governments hitherto: centre-right, capitalist, christian (current government trying to unfuck what was done)

        Spanish government: centre right

        Dutch government: centre right for what, a decade?

        Belgian government: lol, whatever the fuck they were up to

        Bulgaria: holy shit are they right

        Poland: kekw, do I even have to state it?

        Danish government: the “we hate immigrants” government

        What about the rest? I haven’t been keeping track.

    • @[email protected]English
      7•1 year ago

      Car companies and downstream suppliers are also quite a big part of the EU economy. There are significant lobbying efforts regardless.

  • @SanctusEnglish
    46•1 year ago

    Please don’t get addicted to this cancer. Its unbearable. Every morning I wake up and want to drag a jackhammer across the freeway and just make it all stop.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    16•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    European governments have “systematically” shrunk their railways and starved them of funding while pouring money into expanding their road network, a report has found.

    The length of motorways in Europe grew 60% between 1995 and 2020 while railways shrank 6.5%, according to research from the German thinktanks Wuppertal Institute and T3 Transportation.

    Dr Giulio Mattioli, a transport researcher at the Technical University of Dortmund, who was not involved in the study, said: “Most European countries have been actually encouraging car use by investing large amounts of public money into expanding motorway infrastructure.”

    The EU plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by the end of the decade from 1990 levels but has failed to make any headway in its transport sector.

    Greenpeace called on governments to move money away from roads and towards railways, public transport, cycle lanes and pavements.

    A handful of European countries have introduced cheaper public transport tickets to encourage people to shift from cars to trains, trams and buses.

    The original article contains 631 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!