A $1-a-week surcharge paid by 9 million licensed drivers. Tolls on interstate highways. Gas tax, sales tax and personal income tax increases. A state realty transfer tax. Higher fares for light-rail riders.

What will it be? All, some or none of the above?

The Pennsylvania Transportation Funding and Reform Commission heard those and dozens of other suggestions yesterday at a public "listening session" in Pittsburgh about what government should do to solve highway, bridge and transit funding problems and how far it should go, up to $2.2 billion a year, in additional spending.

About five dozen business, union and civic leaders and ordinary people appeared before the nine-member panel, four times as many as the previous day in Erie. Other meetings will be held in Philadelphia, State College, Scranton and Harrisburg through next Wednesday.

"It has already been determined there is a need for more funding," Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler said, referring to an interim report outlining how and where the state is falling behind. "It's now about solving the problem."

The commission is to present final recommendations to Gov. Ed Rendell and the state Legislature by Nov. 15, including proposed revenue-generating measures.

"Our work will be completed and lay the groundwork for that [political] debate," Mr. Biehler said. "We probably will offer a recipe" for making transportation practices more efficient, increasing existing revenue sources and offering new ideas.

State Rep. Rick Geist, R-Altoona, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, admonished a group of highway industry and union representatives who testified as a group to put votes where their mouths are.

"While you're looking at Harrisburg, look at yourselves," he said. "I resent anybody from this part of the state telling us what to do when you didn't put up votes the last time."

Mr. Geist was referring to 1997, when the General Assembly narrowly passed a package of gas tax, license and vehicle registration fees with little help and few votes from southwestern Pennsylvania lawmakers. The legislation has been generating more than $400 million a year for roads and bridges.

Speakers who proposed such measures as the $1-a-week surcharge on driver's licenses and shifting a $500 million-plus annual expense for state police from PennDOT's budget included representatives of the Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania, Mon Valley Progress Council, Regional Council of Carpenters and operating engineers involved with heavy highway construction.

William Buckley, who moved from the suburbs to Pittsburgh to take advantage of public transit, said he's willing pay a higher state income tax to save the Port Authority, which disclosed yesterday that it is looking at record fares and service cutbacks to address a looming funding crisis.

"It is the fairest tax and the collection provisions are already in place," Mr. Buckley said. "[And] at the present time, the percentage of taxed income is Pennsylvania is one of the lowest in the nation."

Ken Zapinski, an Allegheny Conference on Community Development spokesman, said the Port Authority is due for a number of reforms, some of which require lawmakers to pass enabling legislation, such as prohibiting supervisors from being in the same union bargaining unit as workers they supervise.

He asked the commission to recommend spending $800,000 to make a comprehensive assessment of the transit agency and what the community "wants, needs and is willing to pay for."

Arthur Fleming of Forest Hills challenged the commission to "think outside the box," including folding the state-related Turnpike Commission into PennDOT.

Jon Smith of Banksville, a member of the Allegheny County Transit Council, set out a "white elephant" made of balloons on the floor before he testified, symbolic of the high costs of providing trolley service at the expense of buses, he said.

"Riders are prepared for a modest fare increase," he said. "They understand that costs have gone up."

Save Our Transit, a community-based group of transit activists, expressed five years of frustration lobbying lawmakers, traveling to Harrisburg and staging demonstrations without achieving their goal of passage of a reliable, dedicated source of funding that would have solved fare and service threats.

"All we've gotten is a cold shoulder," said Amanda Zeiders, who currently chairs SOT.