Washington State Department of Transportation is starting to realize that we cannot afford to maintain the sheer volume of roads we build. The maintenance debt that we have built up is bankrupting our governments and it’s only going to get worse year by year.
Civilization itself cannot afford to have so many car oriented roads long term.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_e69a80be-75f1-11ef-8b50-3babe18f06e9.html
Roads are expensive for sure, but they’re also necessary for last mile transport of good, even in walkable cities. Even bike paths need road maintenance because of environmental factors.
We don’t need nearly as many lanes as many highways have, but the amount of car oriented roads isn’t as much of a problem as the implicit government subdisies flowing into roads is. Road users don’t pay enough to maintain the roads they’re using.
This can all be fixed, though. Tax vehicles based on weight (for road damage), torque, and pollution, possibly with exemptions for trucks to make transport viable, and roads can be used and maintained. This has the added benefit of making land yachts less economically viable and making the roads safer for everyone as a consequence.
Good luck convincing car owners to pay twice the amount of tax being spent on roads, though.
Many countries have tied the vehicle tax to the ‘weight’ of the car. Most of them use power to determine the weight, but still.
You could get taxed on traveled distance pdr year but the poses a problem with people who travel outside of the countries limits.
Toll systems seem to be quite effective.
Economists love toll systems because they’re essentially a use-tax: drive more, pay more.
Unfortunately, they’re also a regressive tax. Poor people generally drive more because they can’t afford to live near their work/school/etc. So, the additional tax revenue is mostly extracted from the people who are the least capable of changing their behavior and have the least disposable income.
Toll roads always annoyed me. Here they are usually a public-private partnership. I’ve always argued that if a private company views it as profitable then a better use of money would be handle it all publicly so we can reduce the toll cost or invest the earned money into other infrastructure, instead of the pockets of wealthy people.