Doubts meet panel's warning

Lawmakers on a legislative Transportation Committee, wary of being forced to bail out state transportation agencies with unpopular new taxes and tolls, questioned the findings of a report issued last month that said Massachusetts roadways and rail systems need an appropriation of as much as $19 billion to keep them from falling into dangerous disrepair.

The Transportation Finance Commission, which was appointed by the Legislature two years ago to provide a comprehensive and apolitical evaluation of the state's transportation needs over the next 20 years, got headlines two weeks ago with a grim picture of the transportation system.

But several lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Transportation heaped skeptical questions on three members of the commission, tagging their report a "Trojan horse" aimed at getting more money out of state coffers.

"Why now should we take heed when a number of other studies have been ignored?" said Senator Robert L. Hedlund, a Republican from Weymouth who said similar predictions of dire consequences had not come true.

The commission's report said every state transportation agency is running a deficit, is burdened with record debt, and is resorting to short-term fixes despite long-term financial problems. Without real change, the report said, the state's transportation infrastructure will begin to crumble as some of the highest transit and road debt in the country continues to grow.

John V. Fernandes, a Democrat from Milford, said the commission's report failed to address questions about how efficiently agencies are spending the money they receive. Without answers to those questions, a taxpayer bailout would be a political hard sell, Fernandes said.

"We can't get to the point of raising the revenue . . . until we know that the efficiencies have been looked at," he said. "The public just won't accept that kind of approach."

Members of the commission who testified before the Transportation Committee yesterday defended the report and said they had made conservative estimates of the problems, based on state budget data. "It is far more likely, in my opinion, that you can add $3 or $5 billion to the bottom line here than you could ever take those numbers away," said Stephen J. Silveira, chairman of the Transportation Finance Commission.

"The commission has been extremely sensitive to the notion of people thinking we're creating a Trojan horse, thinking that we're creating a big number in the hope that somebody will give us a smaller number than what we really need," he said.Senator Steven A. Baddour, a Methuen Democrat who is cochairman of the committee, tried to rally skeptical members behind the commission's findings, which he said were "sobering, upsetting, and depressing."

"It would be easy at the second stage of this to say: 'It's dead on arrival. We're not going to do this; we're not going to do that,' " he said. "I think it's going to be incumbent upon us to pull back and to really get into a discussion across the Commonwealth as to how we solve these problems. They are real. All you have to do is drive down any road in the Commonwealth and you know that we do have the second or third worst roads and bridges in the country."

The commission is preparing recommendations on how to resolve a predicted $15 billion to $19 billion transportation shortfall over the next 20 years, which includes no new rail or road projects. Those recommendations, which could include new tolls, raising the gas tax, and reconfiguring how the state finances transportation, are expected to be released as early as next month. A public hearing is scheduled for April 30.