Tolls achive more than just crudely approximating a car's impact to the road system. Tolls can influence traffic behavior and congestion; which I'd guess is the point of that LA article.

Also, I'm curious how those costs look when you have open road tolling, as recently implemented in Massachusetts. No toll takers, just cameras, computers, and a call center "somewhere".

> Tolls can influence traffic behavior and congestion

That's more like "give poor people a reason not to drive on certain roads/lanes" if you take the glass half empty view of things.

There's also the cost of setting up and maintaining system that doesn't apply to fuel tax collection (since it's already in place).