If Connecticut is serious about modernizing its transportation system it must commit the funds necessary, safe from being diverted to address short-term budgeting problems. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has made improving transportation infrastructure a second-term priority, recognizes this. He backs a constitutional amendment to lock in funding.

As reported by The Connecticut Mirror, however, he is facing strong resistance from legislative leaders in his own Democratic Party. Both House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey and Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney have their own priority — boosting municipal aid and offering property tax relief. They recognize a “lockbox” protecting funding for transportation would make it tougher to sustain municipal aid.

This presents quite the challenge for Gov. Malloy. Without a secure funding source to cover the debt service on the massive bonding that will be necessary to underwrite the governor’s “Let’s Go CT” transportation initiative, it will bog down like traffic encountering an accident on Interstate 95 on a summer Sunday afternoon.

In the past, the state depended on fuel tax receipts to pay for transportation initiatives, but the legislature frequently diverted the money to meet other budgetary needs. To find more funding, the legislature agreed to Gov. Malloy’s request to direct revenues from one-half of 1 percentage point of the sales tax for transportation. And, as stated here in the past, electronic tolling may be necessary to produce the necessary revenues to revamp highways, rail lines, bridges and ports, and to expand bus lines and bike paths.

None of these revenue sources will do any good, however, if tapped for other needs. The nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis projects a nearly $1 billion deficit is baked into the 2017-2018 fiscal year, the first after the current two-year budget cycle ends.

In the past session, one-half of 1 percentage point was also set aside for municipal aid, including boosting state aid for cities such as New London with a large percentage of un-taxable nonprofit institutions, and capping car taxes. Sen. Looney and Speaker Sharkey don’t want that initiative compromised.

The difference is that rebuilding a transportation system requires a long-term commitment, while the distribution of funds to assist municipalities and meet state needs should be part of the normal budgetary give and take.

If Gov. Malloy expects to make transportation a legacy initiative, he will need to do a better selling job on creating a lockbox to pay for it.