The sky or bridges aren't falling yet in Michigan, but the state's roads are still among the worst in the nation. Over the next decade, the state's transportation system faces billions of dollars of unmet needs.

With revenues as they are, Michigan will fall more than $300 million a year short of what it needs just to preserve and maintain existing roads. By 2009, the state will have virtually no money to expand roads or build new ones. Work will continue to be delayed on the state's most pressing road project -- rebuilding I-94 in Detroit. Nor will there be any state money for much needed transit projects.

It's foolish to wait for a crisis or catastrophe to enact an overdue increase in the state's 19-cent-a-gallon gas tax. A sensible package of bills in the state House, backed by business groups, would raise the gas tax by three cents a year for three straight years, boost the 15-cent diesel tax to match the gasoline tax, and increase vehicle registration fees. Altogether, the plan would eventually raise an added $1 billion a year.

Michigan's gas tax last went up in 1997 -- by four cents a gallon. Revenues will fall in the next few years as vehicles become more fuel-efficient and Michigan spends more to retire debt incurred from past bonding programs. Michigan's current $1.6-billion transportation program will decrease to $1.2 billon by 2009.

In the long run, that spells real trouble, with more battered freeways and congested commutes.

In metro Detroit alone, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments estimates that, without new revenue, the region will fall $30 billion short over the next 25 years of meeting basic transportation needs. Improving and maintaining the state's roads and bridges are vital not only for public safety but also economic development.

Still, instead of acting, legislators and Gov. Jennifer Granholm have been typically timid. "We are focused on one crisis at a time," Granholm's spokesperson said last week, brushing aside the gas tax issue by citing unfinished work on the state's 2007-08 budget.

The better route is to act before another crisis, or a catastrophe, occurs by raising the state gas tax now.