That's fine though. If building roads and paying for them with meters, even if not fully, helps cities generate significant economic activity, that could easily be worth it from the taxes and other benefits generated. There's a reason every city does it.

There's so much propaganda on all sides when it comes to automobiles in the US that it's hard to tease out reality, but I'd wager anything states and cities have hard numbers behind what they do.

When it comes to things like that, where solid data isn't public I just assume the world is not run by idiots who don't know more about their area of expertise than me. I feel reasonably certain that urban parking subsidization is done at least to a large extent because it makes money.