Petition on road taxes/fuels

[Steady rider]

Petition “Road taxes on vehicles/fuels: spend on roads/cycle tracks/bridges.”

Road taxes on vehicles/fuels: spend on roads/cycle tracks/bridges.

To improve UK roads extra cycle tracks are needed. Extra bridges are needed to allow for cyclists and pedestrians to cross safety.
To get the petition started
Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petition ... 2d7MYNMhio

[Bonefishblues]

Can you link the original petition please?

[SilverBadge]

Can you link the original petition please?

It's still seeking five sponsors, don't think it gets made public before then. Which seems a Catch 22 way of doing things.

[gaz]

+1. The governement will only publish the petition if the petition standards are met.

The governement will only check the petition meets the standards if there are at least five people willing to support it before the text of the petition is published.

Which does seem to be putting the chicken before the egg .

Perhaps Steady rider could provide the full text of the petition rather than the brief summary upthread.

[Vorpal]

Can you post the wording on here?

[gaz]

I'm a firm believer in the provison of high quality infrastructure to enable more people to choose to cycle. Funding for such projects comes from general taxation. IMO too little is spent on pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, too much is spent on motoring infrastructure. That imbalance needs to be addressed.

Given the "you cyclists don't even pay road tax" position held by many UK motorists when it comes to funding even poor provision for cycling I doubt that the hypothecation of "motoring taxes" to pay for pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is a sensible approach to resolving that imbalance.

[Steady rider]

Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petition ... 2d7MYNMhio

The full link provided is as above and shown below with -- either end


--https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200584/sponsors/new?token=pBfDkQ1Cnf2d7MYNMhio--
It needs 5 people to click on to the link, then they look it over.

Road taxes on vehicles/fuels: spend on roads/cycle tracks/bridges.
To improve UK roads extra cycle tracks are needed. Extra bridges are needed to allow for cyclists and pedestrians to cross safety.

The above asks for taxes on vehicles/fuels - this would include all taxes on petrol, VAT on vehicles and fuels and road tax for vehicles to be spent on roads, cycle track and bridges.

[Psamathe]

Can you link the original petition please?

It's still seeking five sponsors, don't think it gets made public before then. Which seems a Catch 22 way of doing things.

I had not appreciated that but I'd have thought it not too difficult to find 5 friends willing to sponsor a petition so it would be submitted, immediately sponsored and then live.

It seems a bit strange asking somebody to sponsor a petition without seeing the text they are sponsoring; bit like borrowing money without seeing the T&Cs.

Ian

[Steady rider]

Road taxes on vehicles/fuels: spend on roads/cycle tracks/bridges.
To improve UK roads extra cycle tracks are needed. Extra bridges are needed to allow for cyclists and pedestrians to cross safety.

the above is the full text, title 'Road taxes on vehicles/fuels: spend on roads/cycle tracks/bridges'

Reason quoted 'To improve UK roads extra cycle tracks are needed. Extra bridges are needed to allow for cyclists and pedestrians to cross safety'

The DfT would ensure most spending went on road but the emphasise for the reasons is towards cyclists and pedestrians.

[Bonefishblues]

I suggest a re-draft.

[Steady rider]

What suggestion precisely?

[Bonefishblues]

Greater clarity, context, and specificity for a start. I've read many petitions and like any other communication the better written they are, the greater their impact.

[Psamathe]

What suggestion precisely?

I think your text is probably very clear to you as you know what you are seeking but it does not seems vague and open and difficult to see exactly what you want changed.

Are you seeking increased road tax and/or fuel tax and the additional revenue spent on cycle infrastructure or are you trying to divert existing funds to cycle infrastructure. If existing funds the Government could divert 26p a year and will have met your petition.

Things like "spend on roads/cycle tracks/bridges" well Gov. gets 2 out of 3 already (i.e. they are already spending on rods and bridges) - they could argue they are already doing this (3 out of 3 as they are already spending on roads/cycle tracks/bridges).

I think you need to carefully consider what exactly you are seeking and to make it far more explicit and far clearer. what is there could be interpreted in many different ways.

I suspect you will cone down to the already petitioned £10 per head ...

Ian

[gaz]

Road taxes on vehicles/fuels: spend on roads/cycle tracks/bridges.
To improve UK roads extra cycle tracks are needed. Extra bridges are needed to allow for cyclists and pedestrians to cross safety.

Consider what happens now.

A proportion of the central government taxation pot is spent on roads, cycletacks and bridges. When new strategic roads are dsigned and built an assessment occurs as to whether new bridges are needed to allow cyclists and pedestrians to cross safely.

Most of the road network is outside of the SRN and is administered by local authorities. They receive some central government funding but the bulk of funding for local roads currently comes from Council Tax/Business Rates.

You may be interested in graph 3 here. For the year 2015/16 the total amount spent on all roads represents just 27% of the total amount raised by VED and motor fuel duties.

If your petition intends to lead to the hypothecation of both VED and motor fuel taxes (ignoring VAT on vehicle sales) for spending on roads it will lead to either a near quadrupling of the spend on roads (with no guarantee of an increased spend on pedestrian/cycling facilities) or a reduction in motoring taxation.

When motoring taxation goes into the general pot it can pay towards motoring's hidden costs, including funding the NHS to deal with the costs of air pollution and obesity. The general feeling of those that follow such figures closely is that motoring is undertaxed.

To be frank IMO (whilst I am sure it was not your intention) the petition as worded is closer to something that the Alliance of British Drivers call for, not Active Travel focused campaigners.

[Steady rider]

Roughly I think 'Road taxes on vehicles/fuels' would come to about £40 billion per year. I gather they may spend about £6 billion in total on roads/cycle tracks/bridges. The intention is to try and get more spent to improve roads, improve cycling conditions and improve conditions for pedestrians. Asking for improved cycling infrastructure and walking combined has resulted in about £300 million, being planned for over about 5 Years or about £60 million per year, figures need checking, about 1% of current spending on roads.

Even if the government kept the same proportion of spending, 1%, it would mean 1% of £40 billion, £400 million per year.
This is the sort of figure actually needed for a good cycling and walking strategy. Cycling UK may say £10 per head, 65 million people x £10 = £650 million per year, but it is not happening. The petition asks for the whole of road taxes to go on roads/cycle tracks/bridges and specifically mentions more on cycling and walking.

If it reached the 100,000 mark, all the figures could be mentioned in Parliament and more pressure put on the government to provide more for cycling and walking.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... government
The government has provided what seems a bit more, https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... t-strategy
http://www.ciwem.org/wp-content/uploads ... sponse.pdf