Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt speaks to the Charles River Chamber of Commerce in Watertown on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Photo by Sam Drysdale | State House News Service

Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt was in Watertown on Tuesday speaking to the Charles River Chamber of Commerce, where she outlined updates to her plans for the state’s roads, trains, buses and infrastructure.

Echoing recent comments from her boss, Gov. Maura Healey, Tibbits-Nutt made it clear that the Healey administration isn’t pursuing more tolls – after she floated the idea last month, starting a controversial conversation around transportation revenue funding. Still, she says, the issue of needing more revenue isn’t going away.

“I spend a lot of time talking about different funding mechanisms. That is a very controversial thing to talk about,” she said, to laughter from the few dozen attendees. “But we have to talk about it. And whether people think my idea is crappy that’s fine, but we need ideas. We need any ideas because we’ve used everything we have and the tools aren’t working.”

Massachusetts does have a major new education and transportation funding source in the form of an income surtax on the wealthiest households, but some policymakers in the administration and the legislature are on the hunt for more revenue.

As MBTA officials outlined in presentations to the press and the agency’s board, the T’s revenue streams don’t match up to the level of employees federal regulators say are needed to run its trains and buses safely and keep them in good repair. Some legislators, including Senate President Karen Spilka, also want to pump up funding for the regional transit agencies that provide bus service in communities outside Greater Boston’s urban core. And it’s uncertain how a long-mooted but slowly-gestating plans to electrify the MBTA commuter rail network and increase its frequency will be funded, despite many pinning hopes on it to take a large bite out of the region’s debilitating traffic congestion.

May has been one of the worst months for traffic congestion in Massachusetts “in a very, very long time,” Tibbits-Nutt said.

“People don’t live anywhere near where they work,” she said. “So that’s the reason why I talk a lot about housing. I can’t halt congestion. There are only so many tools we have, and most of them are punitive. You can charge more tolls within the commonwealth. You can charge for congestion pricing, which is insanely expensive for people who drive, but that doesn’t actually solve the central problem of how you get people to where they need to go.”

She later clarified that the administration is not, in fact, recommending more tolls to roads. Tibbits-Nutt also did not reprise her rhetoric about “basically going after everybody who has money” to make transportation more affordable and effective, after her comments last month received backlash.

Despite traffic accidents and congestion, new concerns with bike lanes, the MBTA undergoing a major overhaul, and questions lingering about how to pay to fix old infrastructure, Tibbits-Nutt said on Tuesday that she was optimistic about moving transportation accessibility, affordability and safety in the right direction.

“2024 is going to be an amazing year for transportation, but it is going to be tough,” she said. “The next five to 10 years are going to be really tough. We have so much to do, so much will change … We will be retired by the time we’re done, but it will be finished so our children can enjoy it.”