Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

If Dallas' John J. Carona needed a new middle name, we have one already picked out –Relentless.

Some colleagues in the Legislature might suggest Pain instead.

No matter. Carona will tell them and tell them again what they don't want to hear: Lawmakers need to quit running scared about the cost of building a decent transportation system.

His message is a stick of political dynamite, and Carona is not afraid to light it.

From his platform as chair of the state Senate's transportation committee, he has demanded that decision-makers confront a problem that won't go away any more than he will. The state's population is mushrooming, Carona warns, but Austin has been negligent about financing a transportation system that can handle the crush of traffic.

Carona has butted heads in every corner of the Capitol, from the governor's office down. He wants the top dogs to get serious about the job of expanding and rebuilding the state's congested roads. And he has been leading the fight in Austin to win North Texas voters the right to decide for themselves whether to pay for better roads and expanded mass transit.

Like an overdue credit card bill, the bottom line makes lawmakers go pale. Carona is a walking, talking reminder that falling further behind will only make things worse.

When he gavels a committee meeting to order, it's a safe bet that Carona has witnesses lined up to provide a fresh tutorial about the depth of Texas' money hole for roads. Last month in El Paso, for example, he asked top TxDOT officials to state and restate projections that cash for new highway projects will run out within three years.

"After 2012, graphically speaking, we fall off a cliff," Carona responded. "This problem is absolutely at a crisis stage."

Carona put his solution on the table this fall: another 10 cents on the state's motor-fuels tax, which hasn't been raised in 18 years.

The Dallas Republican has been out on that limb before. More than two years ago, he invited colleagues to join him at a Capitol news conference to announce a tax plan and sweeping transportation reforms. No one showed up in support.

This year Carona had a showdown with most of the Legislature. He threatened to filibuster and kill a mammoth transportation bill unless it contained local-option elections for North Texas roads and transit.

Some lawmakers made the mistake of calling his bluff. Carona killed the bill without apology to those who had spent months putting it together. His underlying message was clear: Why pretend you're improving the state's transportation system if you don't pony up more money to pour concrete or lay rail?

As he guides his committee this year, Carona is separating transportation fact from fiction, a move that will add clarity to the 2010 governor's race. He's making it tough for candidates to use half-truths and myths to make promises to voters.

The octane Carona injected into his crusade in 2009 earns him the distinction of finalist for Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year. If Carona prevails in his fight, today's leaders can build a first-class transportation system and hand off an asset to the next generation.

The alternative is a miserable one, and you can bet John Relentless Carona will not quit pointing that out for the benefit of 24 million Texans.