LANSING -- The collapse of a Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis last week should alert Michigan leaders to needed road and bridge repairs, backers of a gas tax increase said today.

Mike Nystrom, co-chair of the Michigan Transportation Team, said the state has more than 3,000 bridges that are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

"Unfortunately, crumbling bridges and deteriorated roads are fast becoming another far less flattering symbol of our state," Nystrom said.

Michigan has more inadequate bridges --28 percent of 10,887 -- than Minnesota's 12 percent of 13,008, the group said.

"It's time for us to ask the legislature to step up and find the funds (for repairs) somewhere, somehow," said Farmington Hills Mayor Vicki Barnett, president of the Michigan Municipal League.

Richard Studley, executive vice president of the Michigan Chamber, noted that " bowling ball-size chunks of concrete were falling off bridges" in Metro Detroit earlier this year.

The coalition is pushing for a 9-cent boost in the state's 19-cent-a-gallon gas tax, over a three-year period, and an increase in vehicle registration fees to fund needed road and bridge fixes.