HARRISBURG -- Two state House leaders have proposed a bipartisan alternative to fund much-needed road and bridge repairs in Pennsylvania that involves shifting money from the Motor License Fund that currently funds state police.

Right now, state police get $500 million a year from the Motor License Fund, which is controlled by the state Department of Transportation. The Motor License Fund gets its money from the state gasoline tax, motor vehicle license and registration fees and other fees.

But yesterday, House Democratic Whip Keith McCall of Carbon and Republican Whip David Argall of Schuylkill called for phasing out that $500 million at a rate of $50 million per year over 10 years. Instead, state police would gradually be funded out of the state's $28 billion General Fund, which in recent years has been showing healthy surpluses of several hundred million dollars a year.

The $500 million a year from the Motor License Fund supplies about two-thirds of the total state police budget.

By no longer paying for state police with Motor License Fund money, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation would gain, over the 10-year period, an extra $2.75 billion to spend on important transportation needs, such as fixing ailing highways and bridges. At the end of the 10 years, PennDOT would get a steady $500 million a year for those projects.

"This is the only plan I've seen offered that can fix our roads and bridges without the need for new taxes or new tolls," said Mr. Argall. He said the plan "is neither Republican nor Democrat. It's a bipartisan approach to a problem that will require cooperation to solve."

"By phasing our plan in over 10 years, we can ensure our roads and bridges are fixed and our state police are properly funded," Mr. McCall said.

None of the new money would go for mass transit needs, but mass transit is already benefiting from Act 44, which was passed last summer and will guarantee at least an additional $250 million a year for trolleys, buses and commuter trains. Act 44 will raise Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls by 25 percent in January and also seeks to levy first-time tolls on Interstate 80. Federal approval for those tolls still is needed.

Gov. Ed Rendell is pushing another alternative for raising transportation funds -- leasing the turnpike, for up to 99 years, to a private operator.

"We continue to believe that leasing the turnpike will provide the best revenue stream for addressing the state's transportation needs," Rendell aide Chuck Ardo said. The bids from private operators interested in running the turnpike could be made public this month.

All the ideas are a way to give PennDOT the additional funds it needs for roads and bridges; 23 percent of the 25,313 bridges are now classified as structurally deficient and in need of repairs.

The McCall-Argall measure, House Bill 2309, already has been signed by 41 House co-sponsors, 11 Democrats and 30 Republicans.

One Republican is Rep. Rick Geist of Altoona, who is the GOP chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

"This bill will fly out of the Transportation Committee," which is headed by Rep. Joe Markosek, D-Monroeville, said Mr. Geist. "But as to what happens on the House floor, that's up to Democratic majority leader Bill DeWeese. He controls the calendar [of bills]."

Mr. DeWeese, of Waynesburg, is the top Democrat in the House, but Mr. McCall is No. 2.

Mr. Geist said he has long supported funding state police out of the General Fund rather than the Motor License Fund. He thinks that with "natural economic growth" in most years, the state tax system will bring in the additional $500 million for the General Fund that would be needed to pay for state police.

But to make sure the General Fund isn't hurt in the short run, it only would have to pick up $50 million of state police costs in the first year, $100 million in the second year, and so forth.

State police have become increasingly responsible for criminal patrols in towns with no police forces of their own, such as Hempfield, which has 40,000 people, a $9 million budget and the region's third largest shopping mall.

The McCall-Argall bill makes no provision for assessing municipalities like Hempfield for the state police coverage it receives. Rather, their bill would fund state police, after 10 years, entirely from the General Fund, using existing sales tax revenues, personal income taxes, corporate taxes and other revenues.