> The lesson here is that in situations where you have a clear public good that (almost) everyone needs and consumes, like roads and infrastructure, it's better for (almost) everyone if the government simply pays for it out of the general fund and doesn't try to nickle-and-dime the populace to tax "usage".

I don't know how you took that from the article, especially the impression that almost everyone uses any particular piece of infrastructure. Most infrastructure will be used by a minority of the populace. Use fees are a fair way to fund infrastructure needed by its users.

Fair use ends when private for profit enters the discussion, then the only goal is maximizing private income from necessary infrastructure meant to serve whole population.

France has most expensive highway travel in whole Europe only due to incompetent bureaucrats. Nothing fair there, other countries (apart from half-defunct Italy) have figured out things better with better resulting quality too.