Max,

I support some forms of road pricing, based on usage. And yes, especially for use related maintenance costs imposed by large commercial vehicles which do most of the road damage.

I am not necessarily a fan of some of the simplistic "congestion" pricing notions popular with libertarian puritans, and some of the more ethereal environmental types, though. And, I find a lot of confusion with the public, as these "true believers, tend to conflate, those two different approaches, as the same thing.

I have studied the impacts of various user fee options, including "demand based" or "congestion" pricing, and found that variant to have a very negative income distributional impacts, on most of us, who find we have no choice, except to show up at work, when the boss, the clients, or the customers expect us to arrive.

But, yes, in general, the more we make these kind of fees and/or taxes, use related, the more efficient will be the choices we will make regarding the use of such resources. And, the less "free riders" will be able to impose the costs associated with their use, that they are now able to pass on to the rest of us to pay for.

The technologies to do this efficiently and effectively have, in many permutations, been around for years, and it has never been easier to implement such systems. It is a lack of political will, and the powerful influence of the interests who seem to benefit from the status quo, that appears to be the biggest problem in changing how we charge various user groups for the costs of maintaining and upgrading our roads in a more equitable manner.