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Road maintenance isn't a subsidy, it's a collective good that buses also benefit from along with many other types of human transport. This is separate from the cost to the government of running a bus system, which is exactly what large numbers of people really don't want to pay an additonal tax for and are therefore voting against.

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If you only wanted to run buses, you would not build nearly as many roads as we do.

However, busses do tremendously greater wear and damage to roads than cars, and if everyone used busses exclusively the cost of road maintenance and repair would likely go up.

I'd also argue we'd need the same amount of roads, but those roads (mostly highways) could be smaller/fewer lanes.

If the road is privatised by the virtue of it being mostly used by private companies like Waymo (in the future) then they can foot the bill for road construction and maintenance.

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