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