alt Hacker NewsPaying for the road-time you use, like any shared resource, seems fair to me. It would be nice to see decreases in earned income taxes though.
If the retort to this is it impacts poorer people more, then that is a separate problem fixed by redistributing more cash, so that the wealth gap is smaller.
Edit: to respond to reply about trucks causing more damage to road:
Construction costs are one cost of roads, but another cost is time cost due to congestion (and resulting effects of delays due to congestion). A variable rate toll that also incorporates congestion is the ideal way to manage road use, much like paying more for electricity or other resources at peak demand to modulate demand.
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The vast majority of damage on the road is caused by vehicles with high axle load, e.g. trucks, especially overloaded trucks. IIRC the damage is proportional to fourth power of the axle load.
As a consequence, personal cars barely register.
It would make sense to collect toll from trucks only, and possibly weigh them all, because overloaded trucks are extra damaging to the road.
> If the retort to this is it impacts poorer people more
We've ended up, though, with a growing wealth gap and more tolls.