At a workshop meeting Wednesday, Bay Area transit officials floated an idea sure to invoke the ire of some local commuters: A possible toll increase of as much as $3 on the area's seven state-operated bridges.

The Chron reports that the notion was raised at a meeting yesterday of the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission at San Francisco's Hyatt Regency. According to the Marin Independent Journal, the assembled commissioners "began discussing plans to seek state legislation to allow it to ask voters for a toll increase in 2018."

According to the MTC, a a $1 toll increase is estimated to raise about $127 million annually. A $2 increase gets you $254 million a year, and a $3 increase would generate $381 million every year.

The funds, the IJ reports, would go to "transportation projects in Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Solano and San Francisco counties," which, if that sounds vague, you're right! A "spending plan still needs to be developed," the MTC admits, with Marin officials saying they hope the cash could go to projects like widening the Novato Narrows and building a connector from the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to Highway 101.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says that the money could instead go to affordable housing, the Chron reports, and "bicycling advocates argued that it should pay for construction of a bike path on the west span of the Bay Bridge between Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco."

Unlike tax or bond propositions, toll increases can't be placed on the ballot by the county or counties it would benefit. The measure (currently referred to as "Regional Measure 3") would have to be proposed by the state legislature in time for the 2018 election. Legislators and voters have a track record of being friendly to these types of measures, with voters passing Regional Measure 1 in 1988, which raised $2 billion for transportation projects. Regional Measure 2, passed in 2004, raised $1.5 billion for projects and an annual $41 million that goes to transit operating costs.

Will the third regional measure be as lucky? We'll soon have an inkling, with MTC officials saying that talks with legislators could begin as soon as next month. Should the Legislature agree, all nine Bay Area counties will see the proposal on the 2018 ballot. And should it garner a simple majority of votes, it will pass — and up will go tolls on area bridges including the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and the Bay Bridge (the Golden Gate isn't state run and wouldn't have a dog in this ballot fight).

But though increases like $3 are being discussed, even that is still unclear. According to MTC director of legislation and public affairs Randy Rentschler, “The collective thought was to do something big enough to make a difference." But how big we're talking and what the "difference" will be has yet to be decided.

Related: Ongoing Bay Bridge Problems Drain Rainy Day Fund So Officials Look To Tolls