State and federal motor fuels taxes have generally paid for all those ribbons of concrete. So every time someone bought gas, the long-haul trucker or the only-on-Sundays motorist, they paid their share.

But the price of gasoline is stuck in the stratosphere and the chance of raising fuel taxes, or indexing them to fuel prices instead of per-gallon, both appear to be political non-starters. So another way to fund highway construction and maintenance will have to be found.

That is why Utah officials meeting last week in Layton were coming to public terms with the idea of toll roads. It's time.

Today there are no public toll roads in Utah. Only a small stretch of privately built and operated highway, the Adams Avenue shortcut into south Ogden, charges drivers a toll.

The brainstorms at the governor's transportation summit centered on public-private partnerships, as are found in Texas and Illinois.

Private investors could build new roadways, or buy existing ones from the state, and recoup their investment, plus a decent profit, by charging tolls.

Public oversight by the Legislature and the Utah Department of Transportation would ensure that the public interest was served. Routes would be determined, toll rates limited, performance standards laid down and audits performed.

That's the idea, anyway, as explained by Utah officials and by financial services folks who are just salivating at the chance to put the whole deal together.

The up side is that, if the private operators have to rely on tolls to make their nut, they will choose routes based on demand rather than political clout, and will have a reason to keep the service good and the prices reasonable. Tolls could also push people to take public transit or, at least, to car pool.

The risk is that, without proper oversight and total transparency, such dreams could degenerate into tax-subsidized, sweetheart deals that would benefit a few well-connected contractors and bankers but not, so much, the public.

The public-private route should be made to prove its superiority over purely government projects in cold, hard numbers. But, one way or another, toll roads are the next link in the Utah transportation chain.

If the process is open, fair and watched very carefully.