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[quote user="mhurley87f"] Dear FM, Cogload's already explained that Motoring Taxes in the UK are not "hypothecated" (back in the days when I was a student, the phrase then in vogue for such was "assigned taxation"), i.e. the Tax Revenue the Govt raises through Motoring Taxes is not handed back to be spent on New Road Schemes, nor maintaining existing roads. Our Motoring Taxes are examplesof "Excise Taxes", which the Government is free to spend/invest on whatever it wishes, e.g. Healthcare, Education, Iraq, the 2012 Olympic Games, etc. Our Road Taxes might seem rather high by US levels, but have to be seen in the context of the whole range of Company and Personal Taxation. Hwyl, Martin[/quote] Martin, it doesn't matter if the road taxes are disected and a portion directly redistributed to road expenditures, or if all goes into a general fund and are then apportioned to whatever social need arises, the fact remains that the British government collects more from road taxes than are redistributed back for road expenditures.  This is key to understanding why it is irrational for anyone to suggest that any private passenger rail service is "profitable" when for all intents and purposes nominal road users are being taxed off the roads and onto mostly subsidized rail lines.  Further, with such tax-induced social behaviour programs there is always an unintended consequence of such deliberate market skewing, and one of the facets of consequence is the stated fact by Cogland that there simply just isn't any room on British rails for any significant increases in freight transportation due to it's being saturated by passenger trains.  He speaks of the externalities of individual road usage as a salient reason for policies that encourage passenger rail usage, but when there are more trucks/lorries on the roads than would otherwise exist due to this deliberate market skewing, you are getting some unintended externalities that exacerbate rather than alleve the goal of reducing the impact of auto-based externalities.   Trucks pollute more than autos.  Trucks are more likely to cause traffic jams than autos.  Trucks take up more road space than autos.  Accidents involving trucks causes geometrically greater damages than auto on auto accidents.  Trucks cause more road damage than autos, regardless if they run light or heavy.  Etc., etc., etc.  Ergo, you are better off substituting rails for highways when it comes to moving freight, even if it means more autos on the roads than are there currently.
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