Sadly if you flip that around and talk about other public goods like "health care," (almost) everyone walks across the aisle of the same principles and starts arguing in the opposite direction.
I don't know how you took that from the article, especially the impression that almost everyone uses any particular piece of infrastructure. Most infrastructure will be used by a minority of the populace. Use fees are a fair way to fund infrastructure needed by its users.
France has most expensive highway travel in whole Europe only due to incompetent bureaucrats. Nothing fair there, other countries (apart from half-defunct Italy) have figured out things better with better resulting quality too.
Why is that the lesson? That's not obvious to me at all.
Taxing roads can still have a worthwhile steering effect, can be used to even cost as local tax payers are not necessarily the main beneficiaries of the roads, or can make large infrastructure projects like tunnels or giant bridges worthwhile.
Obviously, there's also arguments for free access.
For health care, your only competition is disease and death.