A commission in Massachusetts is looking at charging drivers … by the mile:

Under the commission’s plan, a 5-cents-per-mile fee on major roads would replace, or minimize, gas taxes and fundamentally change a central aspect of everyday life.

“The idea that this is completely free is a fiction. It isn’t,” said James Aloisi Jr., a lawyer who served on the commission and a transportation official under former governor Michael Dukakis. “Someone’s got to pay for it. We think the user should pay for it.”

Drivers paying for the space they eat up on the road, minimizing delays to every other driver? Perish the thought.