[peteey]

>People wanted to take those journeys

Questionable. Suppose people only need to take those journeys because they live far away from the city or their job. These people only live far away because roads made suburban development convenient. Were it not for the roads, the people would live in denser development and may not need a car for most regular activities live shopping, socializing, or work. The roads induce their own demand.

>Charge for road use

Agreed, but the average Joe with fight you tooth and nail. Suggesting roads and a parking space is not a constitutional right attracts passionate and irrational resistance.

[rmtech]

> Were it not for the roads, the people would live in denser development

All other things being equal, without the roads people simply wouldn't have a place to live at all and would have to live and work somewhere else. See e.g. the SF Bay area for an idea of how bad things can get housing-wise.

But really the problem is that local laws artificially constrain the supply of housing. However it's not fair to blame that on road-building. The solution to a lack of housing is to build more houses (it's astonishing that one has to keep repeating this over and over and over again)

[rmtech]

> Agreed, but the average Joe with fight you tooth and nail.

charging for road use is the only way to decrease congestion. Neither building roads nor closing them will reduce congestion.

Traffic congestion follows a pareto principle. The marginal congestion impact of the last 10-20% of cars is very high, so if you can charge a small amount to remove 10-20% of the cars, you get a big decrease in congestion.

You can even give the money raised back to people as a dividend.