So your saying that politicians should force us to do what they think we need to do rather than what we want? You seem to have a funny version of democracy.
A gas tax is the third rail as it's regressive and people see that it's the government taking their money. CAFE was pretty much invisible to the people. We end up with taxes because the SCOTUS gave them carte blanche to tax anything for any reason with any special circumstances instead of having to specifically been given the power to regulate it via constitutional amendment.
Thats all the stick options oddly the people don't like those, we have tried the carrots but failed.
Commuter lanes, we let busses in, the speed limit was the same an busses slow everything down to a speed limit crawl. Do it right make them go faster (an enforced minimum), sure gas efficiency goes down but time efficiency is more important and still save gas over single riders even at 110mph.
Busses, well they are effectively the slowest way to get anywhere that involves an engine.
Commuter rail, could be good the NIMBLY's block any speed increase, we should have 500kph along major corridors. Stations that are where commuters are not city centers compiling traffic and parking issues.
Per car registration insurance etc. I would love an EV adding another car in taxes and insurance makes it more prohibitive. A put put scooter even for around town errands costs me more per day than it saves in gas and wear and tear than it is to register insure and taxes. The fallacy that you can rent a ICE or hybrid when you need more range or capacity, renting a truck for a couple days a month for dump runs is more than leasing one and insuring it.
We give away money to the wealthy with tax incentives for EV's. Altering it to only apply to cars under a certain amount that meet other criteria that gets stricter each year seems more reasonable, short term incentive to make them and long term to continually improve.