At the beginning of his second and possibly final term - only John Rowland was elected governor more than twice - Gov. Dannel P. Malloy seems ready to face some difficult facts about the state's future.

At least he indicated as much when he said the state needs to make some tough, overdue decisions about its long-term transportation needs. That translates into what Connecticut needs to do about highways, overpasses and ramps requiring major work and ancient bridges and dams needing repair. These things need to be addressed before there's a tragedy and before our highway congestion grows out of control due to a lack of mass transit alternatives.

Speaking at a transportation forum in Hartford, Gov. Malloy outlined this major policy priority for his second term that will stretch far beyond his and future administrations.

"I think part of the problem is that we've actually not told people the true size and the cost of what needs to be done if Connecticut is to be able to compete in the next 50 years," he said. "It's time to lay out for them the expense and the scope so they can make decisions. There are lots of projects - whether it's widening I-84 from the New York border through Waterbury or 95 from Branford to the Rhode Island border or more rapid replacement of aging bridges or a broader rail system with more regular traffic and much more rapid modernization of Metro North."

The governor declined to get into specifics, to actually tell "the true size and the cost of what needs to be done," presumably saving that for his upcoming State of the State and budget addresses next month. We do know the governor could be talking tens of billions of dollars or more to make a dent in the state's long ignored infrastructure, a disaster waiting to happen again and one that was only partly addressed after the Mianus River bridge collapse more than 30 years ago.

Reports from the state and other sources, like the American Society of Civil Engineers, come with dire warnings that more than a quarter of the 4,208 bridges are functionally obsolete and nearly 10 percent of them are structurally deficient. There are also 233 state-regulated dams in a condition described as "high hazard" by the six inspectors employed by the state to oversee them.

These are just some examples about the safety needs that should be addressed before we get to traditional transportation issues like buses, trains and highway repair and modernization.

The governor's new attention to transportation and infrastructure needs comes at a time when federal aid for transportation, which covers a large chunk of these costs, is expected to decline dramatically in the new Republican-led Congress.

The Hartford Courant reports that the Pew Trusts and other organizations studying transportation needs have concluded states, if they hope to confront the challenge, will have to generate more money - from tolls or higher gas taxes - or by achieving savings by reducing services and scaling back other new initiatives.

The governor said Connecticut has under invested in transportation for two generations. We would suggest the under investment goes back to just after the interstate highway program was initiated by President Eisenhower.

"You can't just complain about it - or you can permanently complain about it," the governor told that forum on Dec. 3. "I think it's incumbent upon me to have the Department of Transportation and my administration lay out what it would take to be competitive and then engage in the decision making process."

We can't argue with that and would only add having the department lay out not only what it would take to be competitive, but also to be safe.

Too often, we neglect things until the neglect grows into disaster.