Gas prices are pushing $3 a gallon. If you’re lucky, you can find unleaded for the low, low price of $2.78. (We rounded up the Americanized 9/10 of a cent that corporations use on everything from pairs of socks to cars. Sure, a car that costs $19,999 is less than one that costs $20,000 but not by much.) But we digress.

The fact of the matter is that gas prices, which amazingly took a slight dip recently, are still outrageous.

If it cost you $20 to fill up the old beater a year ago, chances are you’re shelling out upward of $30 now. While $10 might not seem like the end of the world, families who go through a tank a week are now spending roughly $520 more a year on gas. If they have two commuters using the same amount it’s $1,040. A teenage driver … well, you get the point.

Everyone who drives is taking it in the shorts as it is, so is taxing motorists an additional 9.5 cents per gallon the answer? It might seem like it since they are the ones using the transportation infrastructure the tax aims to improve.

But what about those who aren’t using it?

You can be Joe Treehugger, bike to work, kayak to Seattle to Bumbershoot or Hempfest and wash your clothes with salmon-friendly detergent in Dogfish Creek and the tax will still hit home. Higher gas prices mean a higher cost for transportation of goods, a higher price for such transportation translates into higher prices at area stores. This means that when Mr. Treehugger bikes to the market for some soy milk and tofu flakes, he’ll be paying more, too.

That’s the problem with this four-year, 9.5 cent increase. While it would help raise $8.5 billion to tackle state projects ranging from the Alaskan Way Viaduct to the creation of new and improved Washington state ferries, it will also impact folks who use neither.

So who will shoulder the burden if Initiative 912, which seeks to repeal the gas tax, passes? If you drive or pay taxes, you already know the answer. If not, take a look in the mirror. One way or another, we all will eventually have to pitch in even more than we already do to solve the state’s transportation mess.

Is I-912 the answer? No.

Will the gas tax solve all of our woes? Not likely, but it provides an excellent start.

But timing is everything and the timing of this gas tax is about as bad as it could be. Gas was already costing us a bundle and with the tragedy of Katrina (not that our financial duress can compare to that which the people of Louisiana endured), it’s costing us even more.

If this tax had gone through as proposed, 15 cents more, the public wouldn’t even be blinking an eye before notching yes in the I-912 box and repealing the tax. At 9.5 cents more per gallon, they’re thinking twice.

This is a good thing.

The thinking, that is. Hopefully, they’re reviewing the pros and cons of both options with the weight they deserve.

Either way, we think the public will vote its wallet and steer the gas tax back down the bumpy road to Olympia, leaving the state Legislature scratching its collective head and wondering how exactly to fill an $8.5 billion hole in the infrastructure.

New roads are needed, but what’s needed even more is a plan to pay for them that the voters will agree to.