Toll hike averted, but...

WHEN Beacon Hill's "Big Three" announced an agreement yesterday to hold off a major toll hike for a few months, the move made more sense politically than fiscally.

The deal among Governor Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo gives at least a brief stay to beleaguered Massachusetts Turnpike Authority toll payers, who shoulder more than their share of the state's Big Dig debt and were facing a major hike on March 29. The agreement is also a goodwill gesture to legislators, who have bristled at pressure to act immediately on Patrick's comprehensive transportation plan.

But the deal doesn't make the need for new revenue any less urgent. Indeed, the way that the authority would avoid an immediate toll hike - by borrowing from reserves and jeopardizing an already iffy credit rating - only underscores the problem.

As roads and bridges crumble, the Turnpike Authority and the MBTA are creaking under billions of dollars in debt. Massachusetts spends much more of its transportation budget on debt than any other state. To deal with the problem, Patrick has proposed a 19-cent gas tax hike. That was bound to be a tough sell, and recent scandals on Beacon Hill have soured the public mood further.

Yet the plan also incorporates reforms recommended by the blue-ribbon Transportation Finance Commission and supported by the Senate leadership. For instance, Patrick would cut healthcare costs at the Turnpike and MBTA by putting more employees in the state's main employee health insurance program. Such changes will promote public confidence in the ability of an overhauled transportation bureaucracy to spend wisely.

Still, sentiment in the Legislature appears to be coalescing around a much smaller gas tax increase. Many opponents of Patrick's plan chafe in particular at the 6 cents he would use to shore up the MBTA. Yet the state needs a healthy T.

Consider: Murray lives in Plymouth; Senator Steven Baddour, cochair of the Legislature's Transportation Committee, lives in Methuen. But an estimated 357 people from his district and 325 from hers work in the Longwood Medical Area, according to the area's planning organization. In fact, the medical complex alone draws workers from every Senate district and all but one House district. Even if these employees drive to work, they would suffer if disruptions to the T send more commuters onto the roads.

Getting to this point took years of procrastination - and lots of last-minute deals to avoid asking for revenue. In this case, delaying toll hikes temporarily will provide some relief to put-upon Pike commuters, and the Turnpike Authority can scrape by. (One hopes.) But the public should still look askance at any measure that puts off an honest solution to the state's considerable transportation woes.