RALEIGH - Legislators and voters might be asked this year to endorse a bond issue of $2 billion or more to speed up road construction, bridge repair and other transportation work across the state.

Brad Wilson of Raleigh, who heads a statewide transportation study group that will make recommendations to the General Assembly in May, says he hopes the November election ballot will include a major bond referendum that could start the money flowing next year.

"To really make an impact on the highway infrastructure, that bond [issue has] got to be of a certain magnitude -- or it's really not worth doing," Wilson said Thursday in a meeting with editors of The News & Observer.

Wilson, an insurance executive and former state Board of Transportation member, heads the 24-member 21st Century Transportation Committee, a group of civic, business and political leaders studying the state's road, transit, rail and other transportation needs.

He predicted the group would also recommend this year that the General Assembly:

* Stop the annual transfer of about $172 million from the Highway Trust Fund, used to build roads, to the General Fund, where it pays for non-transportation items.

* Approve "gap" funding needed to start construction on at least two planned toll projects in the Triangle and in Union County, to cover the difference between the cost of the projects and the revenue expected from toll collections.

* Obtain funds to accelerate the state's efforts to fix or replace aging road bridges. To reduce a mounting backlog, the state transportation department needs to quadruple its current pace, fixing about 100 bridges each year.

Bond money could be used for a mix of urban and rural road, bridge and transit needs, Wilson said. Other, longer-range recommendations are expected later this year.

Wilson's group is also looking for ways to make the transportation department more efficient and to address voters' concerns about politics in transportation spending.

Meanwhile Thursday, an anti-poverty group called for transportation policy changes to give urban areas a bigger share of road money, to boost spending for urban transit and to link transportation spending with land-use planning to reduce sprawl.

The Raleigh-based N.C. Budget & Tax Center, which studies fiscal policy, made the recommendations in the 17-page report "At the Crossroads: Recommendations for the Future of Transportation in North Carolina."