> The people that complain about 'free parking' conveniently forget that land owners pay property taxes, vehicle and fuel taxes, and other taxes which go to maintaining the public roads. So it's not free.
A common resource that is unmetered just ends up being abused. There's lots of data on this, e.g.:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking
And I'm not sure if the various taxes that are paid actually cover the costs of all the roads (never mind the externalities causing climate change). Certainly there is a lot of public utility to paved roads/highways such that some level of 'subsidy' is probably warranted, but I think that congestion pricing needs to be done a lot more too: