If only Gov. John Baldacci spoke so menacingly about the Maine Turnpike Authority earlier; maybe he could have stopped the $26,000 junket the agency lavished on officials to attend a conference in Austria this month.

Instead, the governor saved his anger for the authority’s plans to study the prospect of tolls along I-295 from Scarborough to Gardiner. The MTA had agreed before the Legislature’s Transportation Committee to study tolling I-295 as a potential revenue source for the state’s $2.2 billion transportation funding gap.

Until the rumble from the Blaine House.

Gov. Baldacci’s edict opposing tolls arrived seemingly seconds after the MTA agreed to the study. And almost as quick, last week, the agency voted against pursuing it, citing an unfriendly political environment.

Yup, this decision came down to politics. The governor spoke, and the MTA cowed, making it welsh on its promise to the Transportation Committee, which is scrounging inside Maine’s couch cushions to find the billions needed for future infrastructure projects.

Now, politics controls this quest. Gov. Baldacci suggested (or threatened) merging transportation agencies as a better course than tolls. He might be right, but consolidation is the wrong tack for this issue.

Orchestrating a merger between the MTA and the Maine Department of Transportation will take years, and won’t bridge the state’s $2.2 billion funding divide. The MTA is quick to note mergers have been considered, but scuttled, and savings would be “minuscule,” according to its spokesman.

It sure wouldn’t save $2.2 billion, so new money must still be found. Consolidation isn’t the answer to everything.

So, if politics will dictate where the money won’t come from, it also needs to say where it could.

And though unpopular in some traffic circles, there was no harm in studying tolls on I-295. Its status as a freeway has been questioned for years, especially around Lewiston-Auburn, which is victimized by the discount I-295 affords travelers between Portland and Augusta.

Tolls on I-295 could have equalized the unfair system in place. When it costs $1 to drive between Lewiston and Augusta on the Turnpike, but only 60 cents between Portland and Augusta on I-295, there’s an imbalance.

If the study crafted a tolling plan that brought equity to the current levies, public and political support – plus new revenue – could have followed. Or maybe it would have fallen flat.

Either way, Maine still needs the chance to find out.