Pump it up?..

Proposals to raise gasoline taxes aren't popular. But wishful thinking won't fix the nation's roads and bridges

After the bridge collapse in Minnesota, President Bush brushed aside a proposal to boost federal fuel taxes by 5 cents a gallon, with the proceeds going to bridge work. No need, he said. Just eliminate "earmarks" for transportation projects and direct the savings to building bridges.

It's a popular stance. Judging by polls and the call-in shows, Americans think raising the per-gallon tax is about as wise as inspecting the gas tank with a lighted match. And earmarks (pet projects that don't go through the normal budget process) translate to just so many "bridges to nowhere" such as the never-built boondoggle in Alaska.

Reflexive opposition, however, won't rebuild many real-world bridges, nor will it repave, widen or improve the increasingly decrepit roadways and transit systems we rely on.

Although the federal government and the states spend hundreds of billions on transportation each year, it's not enough to preserve what we've built and to improve roads, bridges and transit facilities for the future. One estimate is that federal funding, mainly from a gas tax, falls about 25 percent short of annual needs. The tax -- 18.4 cents per gallon, exclusive of state taxes -- has held steady since 1993.

Cutting out the earmarks simply won't generate enough cash. They're too small a percentage of total spending (8 percent in 2005, by one estimate) and some of the projects would be funded anyway. Same goes for the federally funded bike paths that Transportation Secretary Mary Peters cites as an excuse for not having enough to spend enough on bridges. Bike paths are 1 percent of transportation spending at most.

No, this is a bigger problem. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal-government investment in infrastructure has slipped from about 10 percent of non-defense spending in the mid-1960s to about 3.5 percent last year. Meanwhile there's been an inordinate increase in road construction costs. They're rising much faster than fuel tax revenue. Any wonder that the federal highway trust fund -- largely powered by the fuel tax -- will in the red by 2011?

Everyone is for efficiency, but fixing the road system's potholes and pitfalls takes money. Is there a better place to collect it than at the pump, where a motorist has at least some control over how much fuel he or she uses?

Rather than dismissing the idea of the extra nickel, Congress and the president should consider it carefully. A long-delayed federal fuel tax increase, limited to 5 cents a gallon and aimed at bringing about a big improvement in bridge safety, would be an effective national response to the Minneapolis collapse.

America has tens of thousands of bridges. All drivers, no matter our politics, want to be able to cross them when we come to them.