One obstacle to transit ridership is that cars are mostly a sunk cost. Once you’ve already paid for the car or car loan, registration, insurance, maintenance, etc., the incremental cost of driving the car more is small (though growing, as gas prices rise). The variable costs are also largely hidden: you pay for gas ahead of time, not when you make the drive vs. train decision, and pay for maintenance later. Meanwhile, you pay per-ride for transit, unless you live in a city like New York with unlimited-ride options.

Pay-as-you-drive insurance would reduce the sunk-cost effect and is just farirer, argues Jason Bordoff in Democracy. It’s simple: base insurance rates on miles driven, since the more you drive, the more the risk. As with VMT fees, a few advances in technology to make it feasible would enable the costs of driving to be fairly tied to actual driving.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.