The problem is that when driving is free, people end up doing much more of it than is efficient. So instead of paying the congestion charge, you "pay" by sittin

The problem is that when driving is free, people end up doing much more of it than is efficient. So instead of paying the congestion charge, you "pay" by sitting in traffic. Are you being responsible about resource usage and carpooling? Too bad, you still pay the exact same amount of delay. (HOV lanes do mitigate this, but only on those corridors where they're available.) Meanwhile, the government generally ends up building too many roads and not enough transit. All this easily overwhelms the other inefficiencies. Other bad plans where we don't charge for resources: Let's give all the people free electricity, so poor people don't have to pay something regressive! Then a few jerks can use it to mine Bitcoin until there are brownouts everywhere.