we'll end up subsidizing the commercial fees as tax write offs with taxpayer dollars
That's not really how it works though. All that does is move money from one bucket into another. Yeah, maybe your federal income tax receipts will go down marginally, but you'll need to allocate less of your budget to infrastructure since that's being funded by the tax.
It's really not an issue.
the core of the issue still remains
A huge part of the core of the issue is our car-centric culture, as in we've equated driving a car with freedom somehow such that waiting in traffic is preferable to sitting on a train actually getting somewhere because you're in your car.
To solve that, we need to drastically change city centers to be inconvenient to navigate by car. We do this by eliminating car corridors in cities, which pushes cars to the outside along a belt routes. Every part of the city is still accessible by car , it just takes longer. This allows lots of good things to happen, such as:
- lower taxes - fewer roads means less road maintenance
- safer streets for pedestrians, cyclists, etc
- more room for parks and other green space
- longer distance, high speed rail travel becomes cost effective - you'd need to ride an airplane (with the security nonsense) far less frequently
Once people no longer need cars to get around, the culture can change. That's precisely what happened in the Netherlands (they used to be very car centric), and it can happen elsewhere too.
People will always want status symbols, but perhaps they'll pick more environmentally friendly ones if cars aren't as central to the culture, such as jewelry or designer clothing. Ideally they'd pick fully funded retirement accounts instead, but that's not as flashy.
Corporations are motivated by profits
And that'll always be true.
Instead of trying to restrict how they can make profits (they'll just lobby for carveouts in any regulation that impacts them), governments should instead try to change the demand side of the equation. For example:
- If large cars are causing issues, redo the roads so big cars are less convenient. Also raise gas taxes, registration taxes, etc.
- If suburbs are causing too much sprawl, increase property taxes, build more high density housing, and build commuter rail to other dense cities.
And along with all this, government agencies should be producing high quality research to present to the populace in an effective way (hire an actual marketing team, don't just publish papers).
The trick is to get the ball rolling. Someone needs to pilot these ideas to show they work, then others will follow suit.