A funny thing happened to me and a few others on the way to the I-35W Solutions Alliance legislative candidates' forum in Bloomington Tuesday: We got stuck in traffic on I-35W.

The slow-go in the southbound lanes that night was not an uncommon occurrence, on Interstate 35W or quite a few other metro freeways. Thus it is that, even after the Legislature's enactment this year of the first major money infusion for transportation in 20 years, candidates and voters are still talking about how to make getting around easier in Minnesota.

What they're not talking about is another tax increase anytime soon. House Taxes Committee chairman Ann Lenczewski dispelled any notion to the contrary Tuesday night.

"I can assure folks that ... we're not going to be raising any taxes for transportation. That's just not going to happen," the Bloomington DFLer said flatly.

"We probably didn't get all the revenue we need" with the bill that became law over Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto in February, she acknowledged. But for at least the next several years, transportation improvements will have to be made with a surge in what she called "creativity," not tax revenue.

Lenczewski's remarks were specific to transportation. But in a week when the Dow Jones average was in free fall and Minnesotans quaked at the prospect of opening their 401(k) statements, the tax chair's message seemed to have wider application. I've met a couple dozen legislative candidates this fall. I can't recall hearing one of them say that the 2009 Legislature ought to raise the total tax burden on Minnesotans.

Some talk about rearranging the burden -- say, reducing taxes for job-producing businesses in exchange for applying the sales tax to more goods and/or services. Or shifting more school bills from property to income and sales taxes. With a pair of study groups aiming to make recommendations about tax policy improvements after the election, ideas like those could stand a better-than-usual chance in 2009.

Put those possibilities into Lenczewski's "creativity" folder, and pray that between now and next May, the folder grows a lot fatter.

There may not be any new money for legislators to spend in 2009. There could -- I'm holding my breath as I write this -- be less state revenue to spend in the next biennium than in the current one. In 30 years of watching the state's bottom line, I've never seen that happen. But it could.

The message Minnesotans ought to be giving legislative candidates who come knocking for their votes is this: Even if the state budget is awash in red ink next year, they are obliged to find ways to improve services and solve problems in state government's sphere of responsibility. In fact, the bad economy makes action on some of those problems imperative.

That brings us back to transportation.

Gas prices may have lately come down from the stratosphere (just in time to obscure the latest bump in the gas tax). But only the most myopic optimist would say that, despite soaring demand for oil in China and India, oil prices will stay low for long.

Driving is going to get more expensive. That's trouble for a state whose people, per capita, drive 9 percent more miles per year than the national average, as reported last week by the progressive think tank Growth & Justice. Minnesota's population is up 23 percent in the past 20 years, the report noted. In the same period, the number of vehicle miles traveled in the state increased 67 percent.

All that driving is adding to the cost of goods and services produced in Minnesota. It's hastening the deterioration of roads and bridges. It's deteriorating air and water quality. It's probably contributing to global warming.

Minnesota legislators could opt to do nothing about that. Republican state Senate candidate Craig Marston of Richfield urged as much at Tuesday's forum. Whether or not to drive is "a freedom, a decision that each person should make," Marston said. "It's my choice."

Alternatively, legislators could see that, short of dictating to citizens how to get where they are going, there are ways to encourage people to leave their cars at home.

For example: Thanks to Minnesota U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, in 2010 the chance will arise for the Legislature to bond for the matching money needed to tap about $320 million in federal funds and put high-speed passenger rail between Minneapolis and Duluth in 2012. Commuters in Isanti and Anoka counties will be invited on board.

No state tax increase would be needed -- just an adjustment of priorities in the 2010 bonding bill. Put that one in the Legislature's creativity file, too.