HARRISBURG -- Legislators will be looking for the least painful ways to provide additional funding for road and bridge repairs when Gov. Ed Rendell convenes a special session of the Legislature starting May 4.

The special session is needed because federal officials refused to approve tolls for Interstate 80, which the state was expecting to generate $472 million for roads, bridges and mass transit. That decision left a huge hole in the state's transportation budget, and Mr. Rendell wants a special session where legislators will deal only with that issue.

There is no deadline for legislators to approve additional money for transportation, however, and discussion on that subject is expected to coincide with an intense partisan debate over adopting a new state budget of $28 billion to $29 billion for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Funding for roads, bridges and transit was a major topic of the Pennsylvania Highway Information Association annual meeting in Harrisburg Tuesday. Sen. Barry Stout, D-Washington, ranking Democrat on the Senate Transportation Committee, outlined the problem in a pithy way.

"Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die," he told several hundred highway engineers and transportation officials. "Everybody wants good roads and bridges, but they don't want to vote for higher taxes to pay for them."

Mr. Rendell hasn't said yet if he'll propose specific ways to generate transportation funding or whether he will leave that to legislators. Three years ago he proposed leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to private operators, but legislators wouldn't approve that idea, in part because of the political power of the turnpike commission.

Rep. Joe Markosek, D-Monroeville, chairman of the House Transportation Commission, said today that because legislators are unlikely to increase taxes in an election year, one fundraising option -- a 10-cent to 12-cent increase in the state's 31-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax -- probably won't occur.

He did say that most states charge about $300 to register a vehicle, while Pennsylvania only charges $36, so that fee might be due for an increase.

He said he also doesn't expect the Legislature this year to enact a tax on the natural gas that's pumped from areas of Marcellus shale in the state, but such a tax could be enacted in the future.

He also said that private-public partnerships on road or bridge projects, where a private firm would build and operate a road and likely charge a toll, could be considered.

He also urged legislators to recommend that Congress, when it debates renewal of the national transportation funding bill later this year, permit states to turn interstates into toll roads. Mr. Markosek said that Congress is unlikely to raise federal taxes to give states new funds for road maintenance, so tolling non-tolled roads would be one option.

He mentioned Interstate 79 in the west, I-81 in central Pennsylvania and I-95 in the southeast as possible candidates for tolls.

Rep. Rick Geist, R-Blair, the top Republican on the House Transportation Committee, urged legislators to provide new transportation funding this year, "or else we may not get it done for three more years."

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