It’s no secret many of Connecticut’s roads, bridges and highways are in desperate need of repair or reconstruction. Draw bridges critical to commuter rail lines are in danger of permanent failure. Many highway bridges border on unsafe. In this area, a two-lane Interstate 95 forms a choke point and creates traffic congestion. In Western Connecticut, the I-95 problems and delays are far worse.

And the list goes on.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy estimates the need for a $100 billion investment over 30 years. Republican lawmakers propose a lower cost, but everyone agrees the price tag will be very high. At the same time, the likelihood of finding a substantial enough infusion of cash in the state’s coffers to complete the necessary work is slim to none.

With more states, including neighboring New York and Massachusetts, moving to using electronic tolling systems to raise cash to pay for infrastructure, it’s time Connecticut’s legislature and governor give serious consideration to this option before continued decline in highway conditions batter the state’s business climate beyond repair.

Lingering memories of the horrific 1983 Stratford toll plaza crash that killed seven people for too long have made discussion of reinstituting tolls in the state a non-starter. Technology has advanced dramatically since the day an asleep-at-the-wheel truck driver plowed into a line of cars stopped at that toll booth. This accident should be considered only a terrible memory. It has no relation to how contemporary toll stations operate or how they look.

Anyone who travels with an E-Z Pass transponder in their vehicle and who has zoomed through tolls in places like New Jersey, understands that the modern electronic tolls require no stopping and little to no reduction in speed. At the end of October, Massachusetts, which has charged tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike since that highway was constructed decades ago, eliminated all its toll booths. Now, the electronic system there will automatically debit those with E-Z Passes and will photograph the license plates of vehicles without E-Z Passes and mail bills, with a higher toll fee, to the vehicle’s registered owners. By the end of 2017, New York will replace most of its tolls booths with a similar system.

In Massachusetts, the all-electronic toll system is estimated to save hundreds of hours of driving time daily among Bay State motorists. The system also will save drivers thousands of gallons of gasoline and mean less greenhouse emissions in the state.

In Connecticut, the biggest potential benefit of an electronic tolling system is the cash such a system would produce. The state has collected no tolls at all since shortly after the 1983 crash and instituting an electronic system could generate more than $62 billion in revenues over 25 years, a state commissioned study determined not long ago. The prospect of raising such a substantial amount for a state in which demand for public funding for a myriad of services and capital projects is regularly resulting in no-win budgets, should command the attention of the General Assembly.

Patrick Jones, executive director of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, told the legislature’s Transportation Committee in February 2015 that relying on the gasoline tax to help fund needed infrastructure upgrades is no longer realistic. That reliance has grown even less realistic in the 20 months since the legislative hearing at which Jones spoke. Increasingly fuel-efficient vehicles means the tax revenues simply cannot keep pace with the needs.

First on the agenda is approving a state constitutional amendment that assures revenues generated by toll collection and the gas tax are dedicated to infrastructure repairs and improvements.

We urge legislators to then institute an electronic toll system for Connecticut.

Aging roads and bridges will only continue to deteriorate the longer this alternative is delayed.