Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

2009 is a bust for those looking to top leadership in Austin to find solutions to transportation problems. After 142 days of lawmaking – including last week's special session of spectacularly low expectations – Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus left the state treading water on transportation funding and getting deeper in debt.

The next best hope for progress will be 2010 and the expected GOP showdown in the governor's race between Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

It will match an incumbent who fell short this year against a challenger who has a chance to bring fresh approaches to paying the price of Texas' transportation needs.

In either case, Texas deserves a realistic strategy, one that confronts the size and urgency of the problem. Would-be fixes now on the table fail to form the foundation of a solution:

Perry's approach centers on his call to "stop diversions," a reference to siphoning off fuel taxes meant for road building. Even if lawmakers would go along, money put back in the road fund every year would maybe pay for a couple of new highway intersections.

Hutchison's work in Washington centers on her call for return of every dollar Texans pay in federal fuel taxes instead of siphoning off some for other states. Even if Congress would go along, the money recovered would maybe pay for a couple of new highway intersections.

Texas needs workable solutions and a serious infusion of money.

When the senator announces her candidacy in coming weeks, she must detail how she would lead on transportation from the governor's office. Ideas from Democratic candidates are no less important, but the first challenge to the status quo will come in the GOP primary.

And the status quo needs challenging. The state's fuel tax collections are falling, and the Federal Highway Trust Fund is about to be broke. Even though state lawmakers decided to borrow billions more to keep up highway construction, state transportation officials forecast a shutdown of new projects come 2012.

If candidates for office don't put a possible fuel tax increase on the table, they are ignoring the obvious.

North Texas lawmakers have a special responsibility to find funding solutions in light of a depressing new traffic study. The Texas Transportation Institute, in releasing an updated Urban Mobility Report today, ranks metro Dallas-Fort Worth sixth nationally in the time that each driver wasted in rush-hour congestion in 2007. That has a significant price: The institute estimated local congestion as costing $1,077 per rush-hour driver annually, or ninth nationally.

This region's legislative delegation should write that down for debate on reviving the proposal for local-option elections on building roads and expanding rail. North Texans deserve the chance to decide whether to raise new money through local taxes and fees. It's that or waste time and fuel.

Many members of this region's fractured House delegation ignored the insidious cost of congestion when they refused to support local-option legislation this spring.

The next governor will have a key role in the local-option debate. He or she should pledge not only to sign a self-help transportation bill but pledge to help lead the charge to finally get it passed.