MOST POWER PLAYERS are skittish about the idea of new taxes or tolls to fund transportation investments, but not the Senate’s point person on the issue, who is not shy about his willingness to turn over every rock.

“Obviously, you get criticized for talking about revenues at any point,” said Sen. Brendan Crighton, adding that there are no imminent plans for legislative action on new transportation levies. “But if we don’t have the conversation, we’re never gonna get to a consensus on what the best approach is.”

During an interview on last week’s episode of The Horse Race podcast, Crighton spoke openly about his interest in at least exploring or weighing almost anything to produce more money for transportation systems.

That bluntness stands in contrast to many others on and around Beacon Hill.

A task force Gov. Maura Healey convened to produce a deep dive into the entire transportation funding issue concluded the best approach is a tax stream that voters approved, and legislative leaders do not seem eager to kick off the next bruising debate about how to pay for roads, bridges, and the MBTA.

Almost every system for moving people around the Bay State remains a source of headaches for commuters and lawmakers alike.

The long-term funding plan for maintaining the T is still an open question, congestion in Greater Boston is worsening, regional transit agencies are jockeying for more financial support, and the fate of federal funding for critical infrastructure for bridges and roads is causing budgeting agita.

“Crisis is a hard word to define, but I think we have serious challenges ahead of us,” Crighton said. “I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a stable crisis. I feel like we have a ton more work to do, but we’re at least keeping our head above water.”

The Lynn Democrat ascended to the top Senate position on the Transportation Committee in 2021, following in the footsteps of his longtime boss, former senator Tom McGee (who is now chair of the MBTA board of directors).

Crighton arrived at a pivotal moment. A year later, the Federal Transit Administration flagged a series of major safety issues at the T and ordered immediate, pricey fixes to protect passengers and employees.

Crighton remembers it as a period of “real, acute crisis, with tragic deaths and injuries at stations. We had train cars on fire. We had safety disasters all over the place.” As a result, he said, the Legislature’s transportation committee that usually focuses on funding and policy took on “more of an oversight role.”

The MBTA has improved significantly since that nadir, especially under the tenure of general manager — and now interim transportation secretary — Phil Eng. But bigger questions are still unanswered, such as how to tackle the next inevitable funding gap and the enormous costs of fixing outdated infrastructure, last estimated at nearly $24 billion.

Crighton said dealing with those issues will take “rolling up our sleeves” and “making up for the sins of the past in many ways.”

“When it comes to public transit, Massachusetts isn’t Massachusetts and Boston isn’t Boston without this system,” Crighton said. “We have no alternative.”

Don’t mistake that for eagerness across the Legislature to take a massive swing, though.

For now, lawmakers seem content with what they’ve done so far, including a maneuver to funnel more than half a billion dollars in surtax revenue through an account known as the Commonwealth Transportation Fund, thereby unlocking more borrowing capacity for projects.

Asked if his colleagues are in the mood for a bigger move, Crighton said he’s unsure given the “challenging and uncertain times” posed by macroeconomic trends and a federal government eager to slash funding to states.

“I don’t know if at this moment there’s the will to pass some modernization of our transportation finance system,” he said. “It inevitably needs to happen. I don’t think anyone says it doesn’t.”

Healey convened a task force of experts from across different industries and asked them to ponder large-scale transportation finance questions. Their final report published in January eschewed any new taxes and instead called for more strategic use of surtax dollars, including the aforementioned maneuver to boost bonding.

Crighton did not take any issue with that approach to get the system stabilized, but cautioned that the voter-approved surtax “was never meant to be a silver bullet for transportation.”

“I’m all for every reform we can get — and everyone says ‘reform before revenue’ — but I think we’ve shortchanged the system for so long,” he said, citing both the T and the regional transit authorities outside the Boston area.

With that, Crighton reprised a degree of skepticism toward a phrase that became politically supercharged during his tenure as an aide to McGee more than a decade and a half ago.

In 2009, in the midst of debate over a proposed gas tax increase, then-Transportation Secretary Jim Aloisi dismissed the “reform before revenue” phrase, backed by then-Senate President Therese Murray, as a “meaningless slogan.” Aloisi, who is a regular contributor to CommonWealth Beacon, left the Patrick administration later that year.

Crighton also summoned the specter of another revenue-raising strategy that has long put many motorists on edge: congestion pricing, or charging drivers higher prices on crowded roadways at peak hours.

New York City launched a congestion pricing system at the start of the year, but despite years of debate about simply studying the idea in Boston, the Bay State appears far from embracing it.

Crighton pondered why Massachusetts would take that idea “arbitrarily off the table,” given that it’s produced “results across the world,” including in New York.

“Congestion pricing, I think, too often is looked at like Beetlejuice — like you say it three times, and all of a sudden, congestion pricing is here on our roads in Massachusetts,” he said, referencing the 1988 Tim Burton film in which the repeated invocation of the titular character’s name summons him.

Crighton is also prodding for more of a conversation about tolls, which are currently imposed only on the Massachusetts Turnpike that bisects the state from east to west and several Boston-area bridges and tunnels.

In his North Shore district, “whether you’re taking the bridge or the tunnel, you’re paying every time,” he said, referencing tolls that hit drivers using the Tobin Bridge, Sumner and Callahan Tunnels, and Ted Williams Tunnel.

Senate President Karen Spilka, who represents several MetroWest communities that make heavy use of the Massachusetts Turnpike, has long pitched expanded tolls as a matter of regional equity.

But the idea has also proven to be a political third rail. Former transportation secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt set off a firestorm — and drew a prompt rebuke from her boss, the governor — when she said she was considering tolls along the state’s borders. Crighton says he understands cross-state tolls are sensitive for border communities, but the question of retooling tolls should be up for debate like other potential revenue streams.

Crighton dismissed the idea of an increase in the state gas tax, which he warned has “run its course” as vehicles become more fuel-efficient or electric.

Apart from that, he said, “Everything should be on the table.”