Timing proved to be everything for those trying to push road and bridge projects through without taxpayer approval, as legislators voted in $210 million in bonds during the final days and even hours of the legislative session that ended on Friday night.

The green light to spend came after most of the session was spent cutting programs or tapping one-time revenue sources to fill a $190 million hole left in the state budget because of lower than anticipated income and sales tax collections.

Gov. John Baldacci vowed he would not raise taxes or fees to fill that hole and didn't, but that pledge fell by the wayside after the supplemental budget was passed.

In addition to tax hikes on soft drinks, beer and wine that industry experts say will raise more than $35 million, and a 1.8 percent tax on insurance claims paid by insurance companies and the self-insured to raise another $36 million, all to pay for Dirigo Health, the Legislature also approved two bond packages, one right after the other, to pay for transportation projects.

Those packages include:

--$160 million in revenue bonds for bridge repair that will be paid back by raising vehicle registrations, title fees and the cost of vanity plates by $10 each.

--$50 million in revenue bonds for road improvements that will be paid for by changing the way the state pays for the State Police, shifting more of the cost to the general fund from the highway fund. Both are supported by taxes.

Baldacci himself put in the late bill to fund $160 million in bridge improvements through revenue bonds that do not require either a two-thirds vote of the Legislature or a vote of the people like regular general fund bonds.

That bill worked so well - passing the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support last Tuesday - a second bill was proposed by the Transportation Committee on Thursday without going through a public hearing to float another $50 million revenue bond to repair roads. It passed on the very last day of the session, again with bipartisan support.

Republican leader, Sen. Carol Weston, R-Waldo, said her party went along with the $210 million in revenue bonds, despite the fact they bypassed the traditional process laid out in the state's constitution, because the state's roads and bridges are in such bad repair.

"There's no one who can argue that those aren't real needs, and there's no one who doesn't already know that if they were out there as a question, everybody would say absolutely yes. I mean it would probably be 70 percent or more," she said.

Weston said her justification for going the revenue-bond route is that when the bonds are put on a ballot, through a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, more than just roads and bridges get funded.

"Whenever we've done bonds, we've come in and our list is all infrastructure. Their (Democratic) list is all kinds of other things, including programming, that should never be bonded," she said.

Voters last June approved a $113 million bond package for road and bridge repair that went through the constitutionally prescribed route. The additional bonds floated by the Legislature will help address what the state Department of Transportation says is a $50 million annual need to replace aging infrastructure. The road and bridge bonds are also expected to produce more than 1,200 jobs.