Gov. Deval Patrick deserves credit for at least stating the obvious last week when he acknowledged the Massachusetts transportation system is a mess, plagued by, in his own words, "a hodgepodge of bureaucratic oversight and a lack of sustainable financing."

And he deserves kudos for going beyond that, acknowledging that this mess is in large measure due to multiple transportation agencies being havens for patronage rather than merit — agencies that take money earmarked for infrastructure maintenance and improvements, and spend it instead on unaffordable salaries, benefits and early retirements. Indeed, while everybody has known about this problem for decades — especially when it comes to the MassPike, or the old Massachusetts Turnpike Authority — Patrick is one of few elected officials to acknowledge it publicly.

But acknowledging the problem is one thing, solving it without demanding yet more from beleaguered taxpayers and toll payers who've funded these bloated bureaucracies for decades is quite another. And so far, the governor — calling for toll hikes on the pike inside of Routes 95/128, and allowing the MBTA to boost parking fees at its lots, including the two in Gloucester — is insisting that, "we cannot cut and save our way to a better system."

Perhaps not. But cutting and saving should be his first priority, not the last. So far, his efforts in that area amount to nibbling at the edges. Patrick claims he is already saving "millions" by reducing the number of toll collectors and replacing police details with civilian flaggers.

But the number of exceptions being written into the policy allowing civilian flaggers — and the acceptance that these flaggers be paid a laughable "prevailing wage" of more than $30 an hour — means the savings will be about 10 percent of what they would be if the governor stood up to the thuggish behavior of the police unions.

Patrick's plan to consolidate transportation agencies — Massport, the Turnpike Authority, the Highway Department, the MBTA and various regional transit authorities — sounds promising.

There is, as the governor says, enormous waste and duplication in all those separate systems. There are also questionable expenditures — like the need for the turnpike to employ more than 300 tolltakers to carry out services that can easily be automated, and, yes, the need for the MBTA, in these tight financial times, to barrel ahead with designs on a $10-million station improvement project for Rockport.

Patrick says he wants to start by allowing Massport and the Highway Department to absorb the Turnpike Authority. But he may need a large helping of luck and political capital to do that. The reason for all the duplication and spending waste is that the Legislature wants it that way — duplication provides so many more opportunities to give jobs to political friends and family members. They are likely to resist any effort by the governor to take away that gravy train.

So before any of that happens, the governor says there is no way around toll increases and other hikes "in the short run."

Really. In the short run?

Has the governor not heard of the "temporary" income tax increase that is now nearly two decades old? As more than one political sage has said, "there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program." The same could be said of "short run" toll increases.

If Patrick wants to claim the "efficient, cost-effective" mantle, he should demand reform before demanding any more money from taxpayers and consumers. But as long as he is demanding money first, it would be much more equitable to raise the gas tax than to raise tolls in the fashion — and by the level — the governor's talking about.

The gas tax, while onerous, spreads the pain. It has stood at 23.5 cents per gallon since 1990. And while it would have seemed deadly just a few short months ago — when prices across Cape Ann and the state soared above the $4-a-gallon mark — a tax hike at the current prices is more palatable than the alternative.

The transportation system benefits everybody, so the bulk of the burden for it should not fall on a select group or motorists that use certain tunnels and bridges.

And a tax increase shared equally just might raise more red flags and demands for what we really need — the kind of sweeping reforms that will actually bring state spending down over the long haul.