People also pay fuel tax, registration tax, and other taxes that fund the roads

I think the point is that if they had to do those things every time they used a road it would be more obvious (like buying a train ticket).

They do have to do it every time, through the fuel tax. Driving costs fuel. I guess people just don't think of it though.

it's not a subsidy if it's a user-pays system.

A subsidy is only a subsidy if users don't necessarily pay the full cost, and the rest is borne by some other group of people who _don't_ use the service.

One issue is that people often benefit from infrastructure without explicitly using it.

Example, road network isn't paid by car owners. But non-drivers clearly benefit from the road network, is the road network subsidized?

Other example, people who rarely take the train still benefit from rail infrastructure (freight, reduced congestion etc). Is the rail network subsidized?

Oh to clarify on that point, the majority of roadwork is paid for by property taxes in I believe everywhere in the USA. Certainly in Texas.

In the United States, often a large amount of road funding comes from property tax, so it has nothing to do with operating a car.

At least in the US, those taxes are nowhere near enough to pay for maintenance, let alone new construction. The rest is a straight subsidy from the general fund, typically paid for by passing the debt to our children.

Do you think that covers the cost of building and maintaining the road network infrastructure?

Do you think that it covers the cost of excess death caused by particle emissions and road fatalities?

We don't have the option to completely replace car infrastructure, but we shouldn't act like it isn't heavily subsidized.

That said, the positive externalities are also significant, but so are the positive externalities from rail traffic.

Everyone has access to a road. Not everyone has access to rail. No business can run without access to road, most businesses can run without access to rail.

There is basically no way to compare rail vs roads and making some arguments based on that.

Everyone who don't own a car have significantly less access to roads than someone who do.

Of course it's possible to compare the advantages and drawbacks of different modes of transport. No society can function without roads, but it's still a question of priorities.

> Everyone who don't own a car have significantly less access to roads than someone who do.

Most weeks I spend more hours cycling on these roads than driving.

Imagine how much less maintenance cost your biking causes than driving a car.

A lot less! So we (society) should be promoting cycling as much as feasible. Also bike parking, which is often forgotten. My town is very bike friendly in nearly every way, except there's no secure bike parking which limits which stores I can bike to.

> Everyone has access to a road. Not everyone has access to rail.

Similar argument can be made about highways to which not everybody has (direct) access, they are not a matter of life and death for most businesses and are heavily subsidized.

You don’t generally see figures from any jurisdiction (and I’ve seen numbers for a lot of countries and states) where those charges and taxes make much more than 50% or so of the actual costs of building and maintaining road networks, and that’s just the actual spend before even trying to quantify all the social and environmental costs!

I don't really follow that, a toll is a way for it not to be (or to be less) subsidised?