A coalition of business groups issued a call this morning for congestion pricing and tolls on roads beyond the Massachusetts Turnpike, big hikes to ride-hailing fees, an increase in the gas tax and other funds in order to pay for billions in unfunded maintenance and repairs to roads and mass transit systems, plus future expansions like frequent, subway-like electrified commuter rail.

The Massachusetts Business Coalition on Transportation, a group of about 20 business groups led in part by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, offered its plan as an expression of what the business community could support, in response to a call from House Speaker Robert DeLeo earlier this year. Majority Leader Ronald Mariano said that no decision has yet been made on how large of a revenue package to pursue, but that the House still plans to put a bill before members for a vote before the Legislature recesses for the year on Nov. 20.

The coalition urged a two-pronged approach: raise gas taxes and ride-hailing fees in the short-term to provide an immediate infusion of money – nearly $400 million per year for a $1-per-ride fee on Uber and Lyft trips and a $0.10 gas tax increase, for example – while forming a blue-ribbon panel to figure out the technical details of how the state could expand tolling beyond the Mass. Pike and institute some form of congestion pricing, and waiting for the recently-announced Transportation Climate Initiative, a tax-like fee on carbon pollution caused by gasoline and diesel, to come into effect.

“So I want the legislature to adopt a short-term revenue strategy that enables us to think more with a greater sense of urgency about the problems we need to address, put that money to work,” James Rooney, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of the MBCT, said. “I would ask them to also make a statement, ‘we’re not done yet.’ We want to know what the 21st century pricing structure should do for the consumption of mobility, that deals with incentivizing behavior and equity statewide and helping us deal with other public policy issues like housing.”

The coalition’s consensus position ranges from agreement among all but one group that the state needs additional revenue for transportation to very narrow majority support for specific approaches to raising that revenue. It came as the result of months of talks among the statewide group of chambers of commerce, research and planning firms, and industry associations. Key to the group’s position is the idea that new state transportation spending should be linked to specific outcomes at the MBTA and at the smaller authorities that provide mass transit for communities like Worcester and Springfield, Rooney said.

“We support the idea of a [road pricing] commission that will actually start spreading some numbers … start understanding, whether it’s vehicle miles or where a toll gantry might go, some real specific data to figure out if one of these revenue ideas or several of these revenue ideas would actually generate what we hope they could generate and be a positive and not a negative, because pricing something could sometimes hurt more than it can help,” MBCT co-chair and Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce CEO Wendy Northcross said.

The business community has increasingly decried the Boston area’s public transportation woes as a hindrance to growth. Traffic and congestion on the roads all over the state make for long and frustrating commutes by car, and the unpredictable nature of public transportation in all regions frequently makes workers late to their jobs.

A Better City released a report this year detailing an $8.4 billion shortfall in revenues needed to ensure state roads, bridges and MBTA infrastructure are in a state of good repair over the next 10 years. And a March poll conducted by MassINC Polling Group found that 66 percent of resident think action is “urgently needed” to improve the state’s transportation system. The poll also showed 80 percent support for the general idea of raising new state revenue to spend on transportation infrastructure and public transit.

There is some dissension in the business community over whether to raise the gas tax or simply rely on Transportation Climate Initiative revenue, which could generate between $75 million and $375 million in transportation funding. Transportation Committee Chair Rep. William Straus has repeatedly said since that it would be hard – “not impossible, just hard,” he said this week – to put together a transportation financing proposal that didn’t include an adjustment to the gas tax. Many of Massachusetts’ neighbors have higher gas taxes.

Who pays – whether it be tolls or other pricing strategies the system that Rooney envisions could support – and how the money raised is spent is of critical importance to the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts.

“We can certainly appreciate the pressures and the needs to do something with the T but, quite frankly, not on the backs of Western Mass. or disproportionately on the backs of Western Mass. and we have other needs out here,” Rick Sullivan, the group’s CEO and a co-chair of the MBCT, said. “We have been advocating for a larger definition of transportation infrastructure to include communications infrastructure – so broadband, internet, WiFi, cell service – so we have the ability out here in Western Mass. to take advantage of the current and up-and-coming technolgoies whether they be Uber-like or whatnot.”