Anything that costs money is 'regressive' if you use your definition.
Sure, we could means test every toll and fee, but there's a different solution for that already - taxation.
There's a secret third option to congestion, which is you disallow some number of people at a time from using the facility, and people really don't like that one.
Dig deeper and you find it's a housing problem anyway. People can't afford to house themselves/their families in the cities they toil in. Build housing near jobs and there's less need to commute in from Tracy.
If you're looking for non-regressive ways to share scarce resources, you're going to struggle. In Tehran, for example, only license plates ending with an odd number can drive on Mondays, even numbers on Tuesdays.
> If you're looking for non-regressive ways to share scarce resources, you're going to struggle.
It's not actually that hard. You fund them through general taxes rather than fares. Then how much you pay is proportional to how much money you make -- even a flat tax does at least that -- as opposed to the largely fixed amount that corresponds to the amount the average person has to move around in order to live an ordinary life, which is approximately a head tax.
That's how to pay for it, sure. But I said share the resource. Not everyone who wants to drive at a given time can do so, there simply isn't enough space. How does your plan help _share_ the resource? Who gets to use the roads at 8am when everyone wants to?
> Not everyone who wants to drive at a given time can do so, there simply isn't enough space.
There isn't space in the current design. That's the thing you spend money to fix. Build subways in high traffic areas -- the ones where there is currently congestion -- and make them completely free to encourage people to use them (and eliminate the administrative cost of fare collection to both riders and government). Build more dense housing near the subway stops so people are traveling fewer miles, removing traffic from the roads -- this one doesn't even cost money, just stop prohibiting people from doing it with zoning. Build pedestrian catwalks or tunnels in high traffic areas to prevent crossings from congesting the roads and road traffic from killing the pedestrians. And yes, you can even add more travel lanes -- it's not always the thing you need but it sometimes is.
You don't have to rate limit the resource when you actually build enough of it to satisfy the demand. There exist roads that aren't congested, the demand for them isn't infinite.
Sure, we could means test every toll and fee, but there's a different solution for that already - taxation.
There's a secret third option to congestion, which is you disallow some number of people at a time from using the facility, and people really don't like that one.
Dig deeper and you find it's a housing problem anyway. People can't afford to house themselves/their families in the cities they toil in. Build housing near jobs and there's less need to commute in from Tracy.