Jonah, there is of course a way to get people to pay for the road transportation system according to how much they drive that doesn’t involve the privacy concerns or unfairness on rural dwellers that is traditional (and therefore right). It’s called user fees, or, more traditionally, toll roads. Of course, those of us on the free-market side that have suggested that have been accused of promoting Lexus Lanes…
Incidentally, toll roads formed the usual method of paying for highway infrastructure in the U.K. until increased competition from the much faster railways rendered them inefficient (something that is unlikely to happen to their modern equivalents any time soon). Yes, there was a highways bailout in the U.K. in the 1840s or thereabouts…