I'd rather route some of the existing $9.6B budget to useful purposes.

That said, Road Pricing, properly implemented would solve a ton of problems!

Biggest problem: personal cars are built for safe freeway travel at 60-80mph. So they're heavy as hell (often 4000+ lbs), and physically large. But incredibly wasteful in the city, on 0-35mph urban roads clogged with bikes and peds.

Low speed/neighborhood electric vehicles might point the way.

And get rid of all of the free street parking.

Where are you seeing all this "free" on-street parking? Out in the Sunset, maybe, but nowhere remotely commercial. Meters are creeping all the way to Dogpatch.

Heh, good point. I live in Ingleside and don't go downtown much. Are the downtown meters free overnight?

Yes and on Sunday as well. https://www.sfmta.com/maps/parking-meter-locations-and-rates

By "free", this means that the meters are free; you pay for parking with whatever you leave in your car and find stolen when you return.

Maybe it doesn't make sense for SF anymore, but it can make sense to subsidize your roads to get people to come visit & do business in your city.

Congestion pricing still on the table, the problem is that San Mateo county wants a cut since they are not as landlocked as SF and would lose out on 101/280 drivers hitting local roads.

Are the "implicit subsidies" the taxes dedicated to paying for it?

My understanding is that usage fees (gas taxes and the like) don't come come close to paying for upkeep of roads.