Or, you know, and this seems more Occams razor, these tolls are meant to finance the roads, which have previously been paid for from general taxation. In that

Or, you know, and this seems more Occams razor, these tolls are meant to finance the roads, which have previously been paid for from general taxation. In that sense, we have been transferring money from people who can't afford a car to those that can. And of course we need to factor in the huge externalities from car driving. Charging the cost of the roads doesn't even begin to cover the huge costs incurred through the massive inefficiency that is ferrying single people in multi-ton vehicles from suburban homes into the city core. These aren't even hypothetical climate-change costs, it's money out of the pockets of all the people actually living in the city who pay to accommodate suburbanites by providing free parking and streets on what is insanely valuable land. It is still far, far too cheap to have a car and do the suburban-city commute.