well, implementation details matter. the premise of the article is to remove the "subsidies" (there language, I would have called them externalities that car owners benefit from) and move towards true-cost pricing for things related to automobiles.

ok, that's a workable premise to start from. the true costs imposed by driving in urban environments are almost certainly much much much higher than those in rural environments. urban areas is where issues like air pollution, traffic congestion, bottlenecks on bridges and tunnels, scarcity of parking, and the need to share limited road space with pedestrians and cyclists are really big issues. in rural areas these are just not really major causes of concern.

so my reading on it is that true-cost pricing of cars ought to make urban car use much more expensive, but only make rural car use a little more expensive. I think that's highly desirable, actually.