alt Hacker NewsWeird how you can have different prices for different seats at the ball game, or different fare classes on the airplane, or member access lines at museum, or valet parking, or different restaurants, or different clothing stores... But introduce price segmentation on highways and people just can't believe it.
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Planes, sports, restaurants, stores, etc are all privately-owned or publicly-traded businesses. In the social contract, it's expected that businesses offer services depending on what you're willing to pay.
Driving and public transport is not a business, it is a civil service.
Should we begin to offer tiered plans for EMS as well?
The government has had a flat cost model for so long that people would lose their minds if it ever changed. It's the only institution that is free for the poorest and ungodly expensive for the richest, while providing the same product to everyone.
Getting better government services logically follows from paying more for them, but the idea is so sacrilegious and alien that people would probably riot.
Which of those are public infrastructure? (Notwithstanding that many times now there is private investment, which I don't believe should be the case.)
Highways are almost always publicly owned monopolies. We, the public, choose to build them because they enrich all of us.
If you want to raise the money to buy land and build a private highway, price segment away. If you want to price segment a publicly owned and operate commons, it needs to be in the public interest.