Sure, at one point it was, but this plan didn't skip straight from completely open to express lane tolls. Twice as many people live here now as 30 years ago, and this road no longer has the capacity to support that kind of totally unrestricted use. Traffic in the area had become a problem, and the only real remedies are to incentivize less driving, incentivize more efficient driving (more occupants per vehicle), or build more road capacity (and find a way to pay for it, since existing revenues don't). At least to some degree this plan does all of those: preserves existing incentives to share vehicles by keeping HOV free and maintaining reasonable traffic speeds in HOV lanes, creates new disincentives to drive single-occupant in the form of high tolls, and funds a roadway expansion.

> incentivize more efficient driving (more occupants per vehicle)

Not just more occupants per vehicle but more efficient use of road space. You can fit 4 motorcycles in the space it takes for 1 car. Look at the biggest metropolises in the world and motorcycle use is significantly higher than in the U.S.

Things change over the course of decades...just because you paid taxes for "this road" 30 years ago doesn't mean you should always get unrestricted use of it. And thinking of it as "this road" doesn't make sense, either. Roads have to be maintained. I suspect that over the course of 100 years, more is spent on road maintenance than the initial construction cost.

Road of Theseus.