Under those guidelines, tolls could only be charged on roads where travelers were given the option of using a parallel "free" road. So the choice for a motorist would be to: 1) pay a toll for a faster trip; or 2) "pay" (in the form of lost time) for a slower trip.
This is all just a silly argument over an undeniable fact . . . that public infrastructure will always be used to excess when it is "free" to the users.
That's not the principle in play, where Rick Perry is doing tolling in Texas. From a TexDoT slide used in their own presentations concerning the NAFTA Highway (NASCO Corridor, Trans-Texas Corridor), one of the ruling concepts of tolling is that for the tolled asset to work, viable non-tolled alternatives -- competition -- has to be eliminated, in order to protect the revenue stream of the toll road operator.
And as a further matter of public record, the head squeeze at Texas DoT has been quoted on the subject of tolling as saying, and I quote, the future of Texas is "Toll roads, or slow roads, or no roads!!"
Nice, catchy, medieval-sounding little slogan, don't you think? You could almost do one of those "Dark Ages" Capital One commercials with that, couldn't you?