The Longfellow Bridge, which connects Boston and Cambridge, could be among the beneficiaries of a transportation bond bill to be filed by Gov. Deval Patrick.

Gov. Deval Patrick plans to file a transportation bond bill to repair the state’s crumbling roads and bridges.

“We are working on what will be a significant investment in transportation infrastructure because that’s what Massachusetts needs,” he said in an interview with Banker & Tradesman last week. The story about the governor’s pledge to seek more money for the state’s roadways was first reported on the newspaper’s Web site.

The governor declined to specify the dollar amount, saying those details will come later. But Sen. Mark Montigny, chairman of the Joint Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets, said the request could be as much as $4 billion. The New Bedford Democrat said a new bond bill should win easy approval in the Legislature.

“We are desperately in need of more capital authorizations for transportation,” Montigny said. “We have major problems. Some are dangerous public safety issues while others are good economic opportunities.”

This latest round of funding for the Bay State’s infrastructure follows a $1.47 billion bond filed by the governor in March. That emergency allocation allowed the Patrick administration to fund projects that had been in the pipeline for two years.

“Our latest bond bill is based on a five-year capital plan,” Patrick said. “This is an investment not just in transportation, but in economic development and quality of life. We want transportation investment to be much more closely aligned with economic and housing development strategies because we believe they all go together.”

Among the projects that could be included in the new bond authorization include the repair of the Longfellow Bridge, which connects Boston and Cambridge, and the Storrow Drive tunnel at Arlington and Beacon streets.

Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency representing 101 communities in Greater Boston, said many independent transportation organizations have urged the administration to do a larger bond bill because of the urgent need.

“The mini-emergency bond bill in the spring was great,” he said. “But we hoped that the administration would submit a larger bond allocation as soon as possible. I hope the House and Senate will take prompt action over the next couple of months so we can make the spring construction season.”

‘Sacred Cows’

Patrick also commented for the first time on his desire to create a single transportation agency. Under the administration’s proposal, the state’s quasi-public transportation agencies would be folded under an umbrella agency known as the Massachusetts Transportation Authority.

The proposal, which has not yet been filed with the Legislature, would collapse the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, MassHighway, the Massachusetts Steamship Authority and Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, among others, under the new agency.

“There are a huge number of issues to work through,” Patrick said. “But if we do this right, there is an opportunity to save lots of money and reinvest that money into the transportation infrastructure where it belongs.”

Montigny, who also serves on the Joint Committee on Transportation, said he strongly supports one giant transportation agency. “The governor is proposing a bold reform that would blow up the status quo and bring all these agencies under one super-board,” he said. “The concept is excellent because now you have all these agencies hanging out there with their own political fiefdoms. I’m glad he’s talking about eliminating lots of sacred cows.”

Still, Montigny is convinced that challenging the status quo will bring lots of opposition. “He gets an A-plus for boldness, but I may be in the minority. I think support will grow as he sells the plan. But the devil is in the details.”

Patrick also said an increase in the gasoline tax has not been ruled out as a possibility to help fund the state’s infrastructure needs. But he has asked cabinet secretaries to “get their house in order” before any tax hike is considered.

“The gas tax is not my first choice,” Patrick said. “The first thing we ought to do is assure ourselves that we have taken as much duplication and waste out of the bureaucracy as possible and reinvest it. We owe it to the public before we come to them for broad-based tax increases.”

MAPC’s Draisen was skeptical, saying a gas tax increase could be inevitable. “No one should be under the impression that savings will solve this problem,” he noted. “The state’s transportation system is deeply starved for revenue because we focused on the Big Dig. There’s no way around it.”

As part of the transportation bond bill passed last spring, Patrick addressed many of the state’s immediate capital needs. It provided money for projects in order to secure federal funding, address critical repairs and assure that work is not delayed.

Among the projects that will benefit from the funding are: construction of a new bridge to alleviate traffic in downtown Quincy, as well as provide an additional access ramp to Route 3; reconstruction on Route 9 in Shrewsbury that will upgrade traffic signals, water drainage and sewage systems, and sidewalk access, as well as provide road resurfacing; and expansion of access to Taunton’s business district through road-widening, excavation and the addition of wheelchair access along the area sidewalks.

Last summer, the Pioneer Institute released a study that said the Bay State’s roads and bridges suffer from a maintenance backlog that totals in the tens of billions of dollars. Researchers from the nonpartisan group said the problem is exacerbated by having responsibility for infrastructure maintenance scattered across state government, and riddled with redundancies and ambiguities.

Steven Poftak, research director at the nonprofit, said bond bills are overrated. “Bond funding is an important part of our maintenance program and authorizations are important in terms of the governor setting priorities,” he said. “But a bond bill can be passed and the money never spent.”

Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said capital spending is very important to communities. “When we ask business leaders what it would take to grow their business or stay in Massachusetts, they always say that good pathways to commerce are vital,” he noted. “Communities have a stake in having a robust transportation bond package passed as quickly as possible.”