No more free rides

Apparently not when it comes to the Big Dig. There, toll collectors and Fast Lane transponders make a joke of Governor Deval Patrick's ubiquitous, winning campaign slogan.

Because while some of us shell out hundreds of dollars a year for the beautiful new roads, the rest of you get to speed along them for free, the wind in your hair.

And our reward for carrying this ridiculously unfair burden? Why, more burden, of course. The state wants to hike our tolls again, adding hundreds of dollars to the annual commuting expenses of residents west and north of Boston.

Enough.

Those of us who pay tolls are no more responsible than the rest of you for the mess that is our state's transportation system. We didn't mismanage the biggest public works project in history. We didn't let roads and bridges across the state fall into disrepair. We didn't enact short-sighted policies that ballooned debts and busted budgets.

And yet, here we are, paying more than our fair share for the consequences.

All because the wimps on Beacon Hill have been too afraid for years to make the one decision that could get us out of this mess.

Well, the time has come to do the hard thing: Raise the gas tax.

Now, before you antitax hotheads start firing off your rockets, let's all take a deep breath and consider a few things.

First, that whole "Taxachusetts" thing is so 1978. Our state currently ranks 35th in the nation for taxes as a proportion of income. And our 23.5-cents-per-gallon gas tax - virtually unchanged since 1991 - is below the national average of 30 cents and far less than what they pay in Connecticut (47.2 cents), New York (42.5 cents), Illinois (46 cents), California (48.7 cents), and many other states.

Second, we need to find a real solution to this problem, and these increases aren't it. They might cover current Big Dig costs, but the project's debt was structured in such a ludicrous fashion that our payments will balloon to eye-popping proportions between now and 2039. And the toll increase does nothing to address the rest of the state's lousy transportation infrastructure.

Third, this is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The way it's supposed to work is that we pool our resources so that we can do together things that we cannot do alone. Sure, we can be - should be - angry at the stupid decisions and wasteful policies that have gotten us here. But we are all in trouble now. We should all get out if it together.

Last year, the state's transportation finance commission recommended a gas tax increase of 11.5 cents per gallon to adjust for inflation and increases of about a penny a year to keep pace going forward. Add another 4 cents per gallon and tolls would stay where they are today, according to Mike Widmer, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation chief who was on the commission.

That 15.5-cent increase would raise $465 million a year and cost the average driver about $89 more annually. That's a lot less than the $700 to $1,000 more commuters from the North Shore are being asked to pony up. It's not just equitable, it's sensible.

Legislators from towns west and north of Boston are so mad about the proposed toll hikes that they are finally considering the unthinkable. Representative David Linsky, a Natick Democrat, is filing legislation to eliminate some tolls, freeze others, and raise the gas tax by 6 cents to make up for it.

As solutions go, it's not nearly enough. Still, there appears to be little appetite on Beacon Hill for doing even this. While Linsky is incensed, others seem happy to keep things as they are. Everybody's looking after their own.

And neither our governor nor our legislative leaders appear to have the guts or foresight to force them to do otherwise.

Together we can? Sure thing, if that means forcing some of us to shoulder what should be everyone's burden.