I think in principle everyone agrees on the basics there- we need to allocate these resources in a shared way that is somewhat relative to use. However in practice, many social systems are vastly too complex to even attempt per-use billing, and my humble opinion is that roads fit into this category. I made the analogy to air because I think it’s apt. People (in my opinion) underestimate how much every single moment in their lives depended on a road. Every single object we touch, from the faucet in the bathroom at work, to the salt in the bacon in our lunch came on a truck that went on that road.
For systems like this, we seem to mostly agree that progressive taxation is the way to handle it, because we all need it, per-use measurement is impossible, and we want to avoid being regressive. A better analogy than mail or water might be the military. We all benefit from that to some unknown degree. Sure, I might prefer to be charged only exactly the percentage of a B-29 bomber that benefited me personally, but that’s ludicrously impossible. So it is, in my opinion, with roads.
We are a society, not a collection of individuals. This is the fallacy buried deep inside libertarianism, and why the only successful societies have all decided that there’s a bunch of stuff we should all agree on pooling our money for. If roads aren’t that, then I don’t know what is.
