I’m willing to consider tolling freeways. You pay to use the freeway, and capacity is preserved for a longer time, since fewer people are willing to pay tolls than to go free. But that’s not to say I endorse cramming everyone on buses, choo-choos, and planes. Roads ARE good for commerce and transportation, no matter what the choo-choo pushers say.
Right now, I would prefer to widen some major interstates to six lanes. You are not going to stop the growth of trucking, which can reach places that choo-choos cannot, nor are you going to stop people from liking automobile travel.
Even a fully-empowered monarch would not be so daft, in this day and age, as to cram all people and freight onto trains and buses.
I think this is an excellent idea. The motor fuel tax is, after all, not a user fee; it is an excise tax. (One need not drive a gasoline- or Diesel-powered vehicle to use the freeway.) A true user fee, based upon miles of travel per vehicle, is the only fair way to pay for the upkeep of all these huge new freeways that suburbanites demand.
And there is an easy way to implement such a user fee: electronic tolls. Here in the North Texas area, the toll roads, tunnels, and bridges (of which there are five, with one in the works) do not have fare collection booths. Instead, the on- and off-ramps have license-plate scanners that electronically record the plate number of each vehicle as it enters and leaves the tollway. As you leave, a computer calculates the number of miles you traveled, multiplies by the fare, and bills you via mail for your use of the road. (Drivers who use the roads frequently can buy an electronic tolltag that reduces the per-mile fee.)
This is a true user fee. I'd guess that within the next ten years or so, the various highway departments are going to install license-plate-based electronic tolling on all major freeways. The excise tax on motor fuel simply does not generate enough revenue to keep our monstrous tangle of roads in drivable condition. The alternatives (higher fuel taxes and/or the removal of freeways) are not acceptable to the public.
Sooner or later the Muzis and the Israelis are going to throw down for real. When that day comes, the era of cheap gasoline ends. You think gasoline at $5.00 per gallon is high? Try gasoline at $20.00 per gallon, or gasoline unavailable at any price. "By order of the Emergency Fuels Authority, this motor fuel station is open for military, government, and official vehicles only." Anyone who says it can't happen is whistling past the graveyard.
Shades of October 1973. I'm just glad I'm not going to be living at the corner of 287th Street and Plowed Ground Road when the gas goes away.