The article mentions price gouging. Usually in that debate, the advantage is it makes efficient use of resources but the disadvantage is it strongly favors rich

The article mentions price gouging. Usually in that debate, the advantage is it makes efficient use of resources but the disadvantage is it strongly favors rich people. So I have a partially serious idea: make the toll a function of how expensive your car is. The government is going to record your license plate anyway for electronic tolling purposes, so it can look up the car year, make, and model and from there estimate its value. The idea being that this probably gives a better signal of who needs to use the toll lane. To a person driving an $80,000 car, a $5 toll is not nearly as big of a sacrifice as it is for someone driving a beater. Of course, this would be pretty difficult politically, but in principle it's just a progressive tax.