Taxes are not the same thing as a user fee. A user fee is something that an individual directly pays for something they want to use and their use of the service precludes others from using it. There is a finite amount of room at a given time on a bridge, train, and ferry, or in a community centre fitness class, daycare, or sports field. You are receiving a direct benefit and precluding others from doing so (to varying degrees) and that has value. A user fee is also directly connected to receiving the benefit of the service. You aren't charged a toll when you don't use the bridge. You don't pay a transit fare if you don't take the train or bus. You don't have to pay for the jazzercise class if you don't sign up.

In contrast, you are compelled to pay taxes and they are not allocated to a specific purpose. They go into general revenue and you may never benefit directly from that payment. Moreover, taxes are generally used to create the existence of a public good or service, with the full expectation that its operation, and often debt-retirement, will be covered through user fees.

This was the case with our modern toll bridges (the new Port Mann Bridge & Golden Ears Bridge) and it was the case when most of our existing bridges were first built (old Port Mann Bridge, Iron Workers Memorial Bridge, George Massey Tunnel, Oak Street Bridge, and the Queensborough Bridge; all tolled upon opening). What has changed is the staggering cost of bridge infrastructure. Financing and maintaining multi-billion dollar bridges are no longer manageable costs that can be carried within the existing budgets, nor should we encourage broad expansion of subsidized automobile-dependent development when this undermines environmental, public health, and financial responsibility policy goals. We piled on debt for so long, so irresponsibly, that it is curtailing our ability to run government in the black and make necessary generational investments in education, healthcare, transportation, housing, etc.