Agreed, and even more drastically, taxes on cars are an incredibly poor ROI on the massive infrastructure given to roads. Obviously we all benefit from this pub

Agreed, and even more drastically, taxes on cars are an incredibly poor ROI on the massive infrastructure given to roads. Obviously we all benefit from this public good - even non-drivers are getting the benefit from things being moved around on the road network, so it's not cut-and-dried. But in Australia, we tend to raise money on road taxes that supposedly balances spending on roads - ignoring the humongous investment that giving so much of our space to roads represents (if you give me several billion dollars worth of real estate, I can probably break even too!). It frustrates me, because spending on public transport is usually treated in a cost/benefit fashion in a very short-term way, but the massive capital investment into roads is just regarded as a given.