Shifting dynamics complicate transit plans

Legislators and Governor Deval Patrick have promised that fixing the state's crumbling transportation system would be near the top of the agenda as the yearly session begins today. But with a new transportation secretary preparing to take office next week and a very unpopular toll increase set for a vote later this month, the dynamics have begun shifting even before any plans have officially been submitted.

It now seems likely that drivers will face an increase in tolls, gas taxes, or MBTA fares, or some combination of the three, in the year ahead. As the negotiations begin, lawmakers will have to navigate a thicket of differences, drawn largely along geographical lines, as they try to figure out how to fairly distribute the cost of getting rid of potholes and keeping the trains running. At the same time, Patrick and others have promised voters they would fundamentally change the system to get rid of the culture that led to the current problems.

"The fundamentals in our transportation system, quite frankly, are broken," said Senator Steven A. Baddour, a Methuen Democrat who cochairs the Joint Committee on Transportation, during a committee hearing yesterday.

Observers and political leaders say that Beacon Hill must take advantage of the political opportunity - now that the toll proposal and ensuing debate have attracted the public's attention - to fix the transportation problems all at once, while legislative elections are still more than a year away.

"Every time you turn around, the numbers keep coming back to us," said Stephen J. Silveira, chairman of the state Transportation Finance Commission. Silveira testified at yesterday's hearing. "If anything, the numbers have gotten worse. . . . As much as we'd like to give everything away and have cookies and ice cream for everybody, that's just not going to happen."

Silveira's commission, created in 2004, said two years ago it would cost an extra $15 billion to $19 billion over the next 20 years to maintain the existing road and public transit network. Commission members who testified yesterday said the state cannot fix the problem with reform alone, and they recommended a higher gas tax, along with increases in MBTA fares and tolls. The commission said many of its recommendations from 2007, including one to reduce MBTA worker benefits, have not been accomplished.

Toll increases have become the most immediate public concern. Patrick has backed a Turnpike Authority proposal that would double cash tolls to $7 at the Ted Williams and Sumner tunnels and raise them to $2, from $1.25, at the Weston and Allston-Brighton booths. A final vote is scheduled Jan. 22, with the new rates scheduled to take effect in early April.

But incoming transportation secretary James A. Aloisi Jr., who will lead the turnpike's board when he takes office, has said he will give the toll proposal a fresh look, leaving the Patrick administration an opening to shift its position. Residents in the western suburbs, the North Shore, and East Boston have been strongly opposed. Some lawmakers have said they would refuse to look at higher gas taxes and other transportation proposals, including Patrick's, if the tolls rise as proposed.

Over the next few weeks, lawmakers are expected to negotiate what all players are calling a comprehensive solution.

Patrick has promised to submit a plan this month that would abolish the Turnpike Authority - removing most tolls west of Route 128 and turning over the eastern portion of the turnpike to the Massachusetts Port Authority. Baddour said the Senate will submit its own plan and talked yesterday about merging more transportation agencies.

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi backs raising the gas tax to avoid a toll increase. Patrick has not backed a gas tax but recently has suggested that it could become part of an agreement, given the level of interest in the Legislature.

Any tax increases will face opposition as the state and national economy struggles.

"It's a scam," said Barbara Anderson, executive director of the Citizens for Limited Taxation, "to neglect the things that everybody agrees [are needed] so you can spend the money on the things that voters don't like."

Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com.