The thousands of tractor-trailers and out-of-state commuters that drive through Connecticut each week without paying toward the upkeep of the roads would have to start contributing in a proposal from Sen. Thomas P. Gaffey, D-Meriden.

Tollbooths would return to highways in his plan, reversing a decision made in the 1980s to remove them. The funds raised from these tolls would be used to reduce the state gasoline tax, which now is 43 cents per gallon, the second-highest state gas tax in the nation - California has the highest - and provide funds for mass transportation, Gaffey said.

"We have a huge amount of vehicles going in and out of our state to some of the largest casinos in the world, but there's no tollbooths leading to those," he said. "That's a significant amount of revenue the state of Connecticut is losing. They pay absolutely nothing to help us maintain roads unless they happen to fill up (on gas)."

Where the major highways connect to Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island would be the most logical places to put the tolls, but expensive-to-maintain bridges within the state would also be good places to raise revenue, Gaffey said.

He envisions high-tech tollbooths with most of the lanes reserved for an E-ZPass system that would keep traffic flowing, he said, and not idling, which wastes fuel and creates extra pollution.

The E-ZPass system is one in which a motorist sets up an account and gets a tag that is read by scanners when the car passes through the toll lane. This would also eliminate the danger when lines of cars were backed up at old-style toll plazas, he said.

Tollbooths were removed from Connecticut's highways after a 1985 crash in Stratford. A tractor-trailer plowed through a line of cars queued up at a booth, killing seven people.

The tollbooth where this happened was of an old design, Gaffey said. "What I'm talking about is totally different with the E-ZPasses," he said. "It's a night-and-day change."

The state has to pay for the upkeep of its highways somehow, but relying solely on the gas tax to fund maintenance doesn't make much sense, said Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association Executive Director Eugene A. Guilford Jr.

"For whatever percentage of people transiting Connecticut who don't buy gas or diesel fuel, they're using our highways but not contributing to our maintenance," Guilford said. "People living here are shouldering almost the entire burden."

Connecticut is the only state on the eastern seaboard that doesn't have tollbooths, Guilford said.

In Connecticut, three taxes are applied to a gallon of gasoline. As of the first of July, the average cost of gas in the state was $4.37. Buyers paid 18 cents in federal tax, 25 cents in state excise tax and 18.4 cents in state gross receipts tax, which is set at 7.53 percent of the cost of a gallon of gas. The total in state taxes on a $4.37 gallon of gas is 43 cents, according to the petroleum association.

In New Jersey, where tolls are prevalent, state gas taxes are set at just 14 cents per gallon.

Though she said that she couldn't comment specifically on Gaffey's proposal, Connecticut Motor Club spokeswoman Fran Mayko said that AAA's policy on roads is that they should all be toll-free. A toll road is a double tax on the driver, who pays taxes at the pump and on the road, she said.

"I can understand their point of view on that, but they don't have the responsibility of putting together a state budget," Gaffey said. "Every other state on the eastern seaboard has tolls. We are the gateway between New York City and Boston. We have so many out-of-state people coming through."

Last month, the General Assembly passed legislation to stop a planned 0.5 percent increase in the state tax on the wholesale price of gasoline. Republicans have called for the General Assembly to cap the wholesale price of gasoline that's taxed by the state at $3.40 per gallon. Without a cap, they said, motorists will continue paying more taxes at the pump as the wholesale price of gasoline increases.

Although they liked the idea of a lower gas tax, a number of people sipping coffee outside of Café Dolce in Meriden Tuesday said that they weren't impressed with the idea of bringing back tollbooths to the state, even if it meant that out-of-state commuters would be picking up part of the tab for their road maintenance.

They wondered about the cost of erecting tollbooths, and the impact that they would have on traffic congestion.

"I don't want tolls," said Melissa Keefe of Wallingford. "There's got to be another way."

A drop in the gas tax isn't going to stop the continuous rise of gas prices, said Dakibu Muley of Hamden. "It won't address the long-term problem," he said.

The cost of implementing tollbooths, and the potential revenue that it might generate for the state, will be investigated by a state study due back for the beginning of the January legislative session.

State Rep. Mary M. Mushinsky, D-Wallingford, sits on the Finance Committee that will have to approve any toll plan. She supports the idea, but cautioned that residents will not see overall gas costs drop dramatically because of the change.

Any plan she approved would have to concentrate on an E-ZPass system, she said.

"Traffic moves along," she said. "People put money in accounts and they just slide through there."

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