For the past year, state leaders have been doing a lot of talking about how to deal with growing traffic congestion and transportation dollars that no longer keep pace with road-building needs.

The easy answers to this talk — and the ones that you’ll likely hear from state legislators later this year — are a bond issue of a billion dollars or more and the gradual phasing out of an annual transfer from one of the state’s road-building funds to the state’s General Fund, which pays for most other state government services.

By phasing out the $174 million annual transfer, legislators will create a funding source to pay back any bonds. Of course, that means some scaling back of growth in other state programs.

But borrowing money by issuing bonds is really just a temporary fix, a way to accelerate road construction for a while.

So, on the more serious matters — how to cope with a booming population in the state’s major metropolitan areas and roads that will never be able to catch up to it — the talk will continue.

But there are signs that more than a bunch of gum-flapping is going on, that the state may be poised to take the most significant step on the transportation front since the creation of the urban-loop-building, road-paving Highway Trust Fund in 1989.

Both Democrats and Republicans have signed onto a bill that would begin down the path of creating a permanent funding source for local transit rail systems. The bill, which grew out of the recommendations of an ongoing study committee, would create a new state fund to help out local governments with mass transit.

The fund would also pump money into freight-rail lines serving ports and other areas.

The legislation would give local voters the opportunity to decide whether to pay an additional half-cent sales tax or agree to additional vehicle-registration fees in order to raise money for mass-transit projects.

If they agreed, the state would then match the money with state grants.

There is one little sticking point. The bill doesn’t say where the state is going to get the money for the matching grants.

So, all this serious talk will continue, with state legislators likely waiting until next year to debate the bill and figure it out.

Still, the bill and the ideas contained in it won’t be going away.

As Charlotte has shown, rail mass transit in North Carolina isn’t some pipe dream. It’s LYNX system is taking commuters off the roads and giving residents an alternative to sitting in those mind-numbing morning traffic jams.

The success of its 10-mile line is probably due in part to its modesty, beginning commuter service where its most likely to be successful.

It’s a lesson that Raleigh officials and those in other metropolitan areas should keep in mind. When this serious talk at the legislature becomes serious action, lawmakers will need a supportive public that buys into their ideas.