PROVIDENCE — The state’s highways and bridges need so much expensive work, and the state has so little money to pay for it, that officials are beginning to discuss drastic measures to raise money that include imposing tolls on such main highways as Route 95.

That, and measures such as leasing state bridges or highways to private companies to maintain and operate in return for the tolls they would collect, are on the table at Governor Carcieri’s Blue Ribbon Panel for Transportation Funding.

Most of the 12-member panel, which Carcieri appointed in March, is composed of state and local officials, along with representatives from business, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the American Automobile Association. It is supposed to make recommendations in November.

The panel has a number of possibilities that it is just starting to look at, and it’s completely unclear what it will recommend to the governor. Whatever it recommends, the governor and General Assembly will have to agree on what to do.

Transportation Director Michael Lewis, a co-chairman, said at a meeting last week that the next step will be identifying “options that may be viable for us going down the road.”

The state’s bridges and highways have deteriorated significantly, to the point that critical structures such as the highway bridges crossing the Pawtucket and Sakonnet rivers have been posted with weight limits. Roads are crumbling, and one in five state bridges is classified as “structurally deficient.”

Meanwhile, according to state Department of Transportation figures, transportation revenue will fall far short of what’s needed for repairs and maintenance.

The sums involved are enormous. The DOT says it needs to spend more than $600 million per year, while its present sources produce just over $300 million.

For comparison, the state got $220 million last year from the FHWA, which pays for 80 percent of the state’s highway and bridge projects. That large amount is substantially less than even the shortfall the DOT calculates.

Possible ways to make up the difference, offered by University of Rhode Island business faculty members advising the panel, largely fall in two categories: Raising taxes or fees paid by drivers and taxpayers, and putting off the reckoning by increasing the state’s already substantial borrowing. Some members say they doubt that the panel will recommend more borrowing because the state already owes so much, and because of the burden of existing debt service.

If so, that leaves raising money up front, probably through measures with unpleasant effects.

“Tolling is an option,” said URI Prof. Henry Schwarzbach. With about 40,000 vehicles per day crossing into Rhode Island from Connecticut on Route 95, he said, a $3 toll collected at the state line could raise $42 million per year.

But moving the toll booths north might produce more money and have other benefits.

Schwarzbach said that most travel on Route 95 is within the state, and that traffic volume more than triples between North Kingstown and Warwick.

Putting a toll booth north of the Route 295 interchange, he said, could raise $75 million per year with a cheaper toll, $1.75, even allowing for some discount passes. It could also have this beneficial side effect: Drivers wanting to avoid the toll would take Route 295 around Providence, reducing traffic jams there.

A difficulty with imposing tolls in Rhode Island — aside from the fact that nobody likes them — is that voters like them even less when they’re asked to pay tolls on a road that they are used to driving on for free, the URI faculty members said. Similarly, “passing a new tax is probably the hardest thing to do,” said Schwarzbach.

Another strategy with major implications would involve converting state assets — for example, a bridge — into revenue by leasing or selling them to a private company that would be allowed to collect tolls in return for fixing and maintaining them. If things go right, the private partner’s motivation — profit — brings efficient management, and a carefully written contract guarantees good maintenance and tolerable tolls for the public.

The oldest example of such a “private-public partnership” and “privatization” is the 99-year lease Chicago gave a private consortium in 2005 to operate the 7.8-mile Chicago Skyway in return for $1.83 billion.

Here are some other possibilities, although the URI faculty members didn’t put numbers to all of them.

•Raise the state sales tax and devote the additional money to transportation.

•Increase the state gasoline tax. Schwarzbach said the state could raise the tax, now 30 cents per gallon, by 5 cents, gain $25 million per year, and still remain competitive with Connecticut and Massachusetts.

•Raise a number of transportation-related fees, such as the car registration fee.

Any of those could easily demolish the political careers of supporters. DOT officials say they are acutely aware of the need to sell the recommendations, whatever they turn out to be, to the public.

Some of the possible revenue sources would not be as politically prickly to use. For example:

•Offer state, or DOT, credit cards. If the state persuaded 750,000 people to get state credit cards and collected 1 percent out of the typical 18-percent interest the credit-card issuers charge, URI Prof. Douglas N. Hales said, it could raise $10 million per year.

•Build, in partnership with a private company, a big, high-quality truck stop. “We do not have a good truck stop in Rhode Island,” and there’s a market for one, Hales said. Give truck drivers a good reason to stop — an attractive place, facilities, shopping within walking distance — and they might pay to stay a day or two.

The biggest, most dramatic, if maybe not the most serious suggestion from the URI professors?

Build a bridge from Rhode Island to Long Island, and make money from tolls. Such a bridge, going from Orient Point on Long Island across the mouth of Long Island Sound via Plum Island and Fishers Island to Westerly, has been talked about, although not recently.

blandis@projo.com